


What You Make Me; An Illustrated 30 Day AU Challenge

by Boomchick, tomowowo



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, AKA, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Art School, Bards, Boyband, Childhood Friends, Circus, Coffee Shops, D&D, Demons, Detectives, Dog Walking, Falling In Love, Fix-It of Sorts, Gardens & Gardening, Gods, Grim Reapers, High School, Historical Romance, Horror, ILLUSTRATED!, In the following flavors:, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Mad Max - Freeform, Nier: Automata - Freeform, Pirates, Reincarnation, Robots, Science Fiction, Selkies, Star Wars Setting, Werewolf, Western, Wreck It Ralph, bar/pub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 186,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomchick/pseuds/Boomchick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomowowo/pseuds/tomowowo
Summary: 30 Days of Alternate UniversesMost recent chapter: ReincarnationBut that first naptime, as he drifted off, something stirred inside him that left his dreams uneasy.Cloud unfolded from within the child, like a flower blossoming. He was not real. He was the boy. He was himself. He was angry.He looked down at the silver-haired child before him. Looked down at him as he crouched behind his own reincarnation.“Why,” He asked the sleeping child, looking so innocent, so soft, so small. “Won’t you just stay dead?”“I could ask you the same.” Said a voice that did not come from the child’s mouth. Cloud watched Sephiroth fade into being. Spectral and dangerous and inhuman as ever. Not sweet, or innocent, or small in the slightest.He loomed behind his reincarnation. A doom over the child. A curse. His wing arching over his back marked him as inhuman. Cloud lay a hand over his reincarnation’s head, as if he could guard him.[Illustrated by Tomowowo! Each piece of art and chapter were made in a single day back in April of 2018. Updates daily until complete!]
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 371
Kudos: 651





	1. Boyband AU

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[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

_In the bright days, when the world was young, when Minerva looked upon her children and smiled in delight at what she had wrought, there was no need for speech. There were hands, and there were bodies. There were the gentle touches of affection. The rough hugs of comfort. There were the long looks of love. And it pleased her deeply._

_But she was not, and never had been the only god. And the others, the bright ones, saw her quiet humans listen to the wind, and they smiled hungry smiles. For monsters have always been hungry, and humans have always been food._

_The first sirens were born on the waters, for Minerva’s humans swam less gracefully than they ran. And for many days, she could only watch as her treasures followed the wind’s sweet music and drowned in the frothing hungry waves._

_When they came to her, arms outstretched, she answered._

_Minerva gifted them with voices. And with their voices they created words, and language. Warnings and stories and songs of their own. And Minerva watched them with pride, turning the weapon she had given them to defend themselves into a new way to love, a new way of affection, a new way of comfort._

_But still the brighter ones hungered for them. And her humans were mighty and brave, but the brighter ones were not always fair._

_At last, her humans were at a brink. They huddled together around the little fires they built, whispering their stories and comforts so that the night might not mimic their voices. In these nights, the eldest woman came to her, wrinkled hands outstretched, her gifted voice cracking and trembling with age._

_“My goddess,” she prayed. “You have given us so many gifts. Please allow this old woman the strength to protect her children.”_

_Minerva thought of the awful monsters in the dark, and their gifts made for destruction. And she knew that to give her humans more than she had might lead them down the same path. But that, she decided, may yet have been better than extension. And perhaps, if they were as good and as kind as she hoped, it could still be prevented._

_“Grandmother,” she answered. “That gift which I have given you shall I change. To those with souls of iron, those with clear eyes and hearts deep as oceans, I shall gift the power of truth. That which you say, that which you mean, so shall it be.”_

_The grandmother returned to her huddled fire. And she said ‘This fire will keep us safe.’ And this she meant, and so it was._

_Thus the first bard was made. Many more followed after. And Minerva sat back, and hoped that which she had wrought would not mean destruction._

* * *

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” The face on the TV was yelling. “You’ve waited, you’ve lifted your voices and your hands, and here we are! Counting down to the final competition round of Midgar Star, the show where you decide once and for all: Who Keeps Midgar Rocking!”

Sephiroth kept his eyes down. His expression neutral. The woman applying his makeup darkened his eyeliner with another coat. Kohl dark on pale skin. He knew the color palette. Knew he’d be shining under the lights. His heart beat empty in his chest.

“Before we begin our countdown show of our favorite moments, let’s meet our finalists!”

“Lift your chin,” the makeup artist instructed, and Sephiroth did. Kept his face relaxed and passive while she sharpened his cheekbones a little further with precise motions. The TV was reflecting in the mirror and he stared without seeing it.

“From Migar’s underbelly, the Dark Horse band of the competition, Avalanche!”

The screen flashed to their band photo, the superimposed lens flare a jarring contrast with the photograph, all grit and grime. They were not made for a sparkling backdrop or a shining stage. But there was no doubting their power. The words, the music, it rang True through rough voices and rougher music. Perhaps truer for its imperfection. They were filled with conviction, and even through the camera lens, even through the distortion of screens, their bardic power remained potent. It had gotten them further than they should have gone. Much further than Shinra wanted them to go.

Their singer stood at the front of their photo, his arms crossed defensively, showing lean muscle and the wolf tattoo on his shoulder. He was glaring at the camera, blue eyes hard, his piercings gleaming dull silver. His bassist was grinning to the side, rakish and vicious under his feathery dark hair. His clothes were in tatters and a bruise blossoming on his cheek, as if he’d been fighting minutes before the photograph. Leaning against him was lead guitar, a woman with a sweet face and a gentle smile. She wore pink and white under her leather jacket, but she held her guitar like the weapon it was. The keyboardist flanked the guitarist on the other side, her dark eyes fixed and her hands lifted before her, as if they’d caught her cracking her knuckles. Looming behind them all was their drummer, his missing arm lifted, with its drumming prosthetic firmly attached, pointing skyward.

Sephiroth didn’t know them. Not really. They’d been competing for months now as the competition dwindled, as they passed round after round of test. More than once he’d caught eyes with the blond singer. More than once the man had tried to approach him. But Sephiroth…

The screen dropped them abruptly, their photograph flipping over and over. And then Sephiroth’s stomach dropped, because they were still using his publicity photo.

“Your favorite and mine,” the announcer was saying, “The band SOLDIER, fronted by Shinra’s own Sephiroth, the demon of Wutai. They say he could kill you with a single word, and yet I can’t help hanging on every word he says!”

“Part your lips,” the makeup artist instructed, but Sephiroth couldn’t focus anymore.

The picture still showed the three of them together. He felt his heart thundering. His head swimming. Genesis and Angeal, still beside him, flanking him on either side. The soft smile on Genesis’s face, the humor in his eyes, he remembered taking that picture, remembered…

“Of course,” The announcer was saying, “The tragedy that befell our competitors is hardly a secret. We can’t imagine that tonight’s performance will be easy on the remaining—”

Sephiroth stood, turning away from his shining reflection, from the tv, from the affronted makeup artist. He walked away without a word, though she called after him.

He couldn’t risk speaking. Not ever again. Not except from the carefully crafted scripts he was handed. Those that had been proofread by a hundred eyes each. That had been checked over and over, to ensure that he wouldn’t kill through them. It wouldn’t do to publicly broadcast a killing word, after all. It would be a PR nightmare.

He almost ran into Avalanche as he stormed away. He halted in his steps, watching as the guitarist–Aerith, he remembered vaguely—ran a hand through Zack, the bassist’s hair, tugging and straightening his haphazard spikes into something that seemed in better order. Watched as the drummer Barret burst out laughing at something Tifa the keyboard player muttered to him. Watched as their singer, Cloud Strife, stepped away from the group towards someone.

Sephiroth recognized Genesis, of course. Anyone would, even with his bangs pulled protectively over one side of his face. Even with his voice ruined and cracked as Sephiroth knew it was. Even with the hunch in his posture and the tremble in his hands.

It was a trap, of course. The one he’d known Shinra would spring. He hadn’t realized who would be chosen to whisper the poison in Cloud’s ear. Who would be working the spell that broke his confidence. Some part of him was glad, that Genesis still had the strength. He had always been a master of venomous words. But as he watched Cloud pale and balk, he only felt sad, and tired, and sick. The blond drew away, slipping past his band with a wave of his hand to keep them at bay.

Genesis started to turn towards him. Sephiroth fled.

* * *

_“Why don’t you sing?” Genesis asked when they first met, young and bright-eyed and going to war. “Hollander said you never do. Are you tone deaf?”_

_“No.” Sephiroth had muttered, annoyed by being forced into company. He didn’t need a band to go to Wutai. He didn’t need support. He resented it. Resented them. “Singing leaves you vulnerable. Opens you to attack. Speaking is a true warrior’s way.”_

_“Perhaps there’s room for more than one combat style,” Angeal had said, hand lifted, trying to play peacemaker before the feud could truly begin._

_“Song is the gift of the goddess,” Genesis had snapped back. “To disdain it is to disdain her. I’ll prove you wrong.”_

_“You can try.” Sephiroth had said. Angeal had only sighed, already acting too old for his age to counter-balance their petty squabble._

_If only it had stayed so petty._

* * *

The theaters on Loveless street were some of the oldest buildings in Midgar. They had support structures beneath the plate that functioned as extra storage space, dressing rooms, sometimes even living quarters for the staff there. They had been added to, edited, modeled and re-modeled. They were the underground tunnels of the bard’s world. Genesis called them The Catacombs.

That was where Sephiroth escaped to. The path was as familiar to him as it had once been terrifying. When they were just back from the war, still bruised. When the words ‘bleed’ still weighed heavy on his tongue, from when he’d screamed it in true anger to a battalion of Wutaian troops who had injured Angeal. He’d watched as the arteries of those within earshot split under the weight of his word. Watched the ground soak through with his instruction.

And then they’d brought him home and put him in a shining white costume and pushed him onto stage with hastily memorized lines, a thrumming back-beat, and his only friends billed as his backup dancers and support singers.

It was always doomed, he thought as he wound his way through the dark concrete hallways underneath the stage. He could still hear the pulsing music, distantly. He checked his phone. An hour till they called him.

He slumped against a wall, feeling despair heavy in his heart. His tongue felt wrong in his mouth, dry and awkward and awful. He tasted blood. If he opened his mouth, if he spoke, would they see the blood on his teeth? Would it leak past his lips? Would they finally understand that he was no idol, no god, not one of Minerva’s bards but one of the Bright Ones monsters?

He was startled from his thoughts by the sound of a shaking breath, catching in the empty hallway around him. He’d thought he would be alone down here but…

He pushed off the wall to go before someone found him. Before he could, he heard a shaking voice, trembling as if restraining tears. It pulled at his heart so hard he almost lost his breath. Almost gave himself away.

“No one and nothing,” the voice sang softly, tremulous and watery. “No one and nothing and always have been.”

The melody was low, almost tuneless. Rough and raw in a way that Sephiroth recognized instantly as the bard from Avalanche. The blond singer with the hard eyes and the aching voice. Cloud. Sephiroth hesitated, his hand still on the wall. The words must have been Genesis’s. A poison made for a young man from nowhere, with nothing to his name but one competition that no matter how well he performed in would grant him nothing but second place.

It had been rigged from the start, and everyone in Shinra knew it. After all, the funding for the show had to come from somewhere. Sephiroth had no illusions about the fact that he was military propaganda incarnate.

“Nothing and no one,” Cloud sang again, his voice a whisper in the empty halls. “And yet here I am.”

And Sephiroth heard it then. Heard the swell of music that appeared for some bards. He’d heard it happen with Genesis twice. With Angeal once. It was rare. It was Truth. It was… private. He should have left. But the music coiled around him, surprising and enrapturing. Not thumping bass and wailing guitar, but a cold, lonesome wind instrument. Something old. Something that spoke to his very bones.

Cloud sang.

> _The sunlight shines, the crows still call_   
>  _Before the night begins to fall_   
>  _My heart is cold but in the black_   
>  _I know I cannot turn my back_   
>  _Nothing and no one_   
>  _No one and nothing_   
>  _But what is the wind to the impartial sea_

Sephiroth shuddered, his eyes falling closed. There was Truth in the words. The sort that drove monsters away from fires. And it was a truth that he wanted. He could feel it sinking into his chest, latching on hard. He felt it calling him. No one, it said. Nothing. Weapon, killer, what are you.

Cloud sang on.

> _In brightest days, grandmother cried_   
>  _Will your children be denied?_   
>  _And who was she to speak out thus_   
>  _Without her words we fade to dust_   
>  _No one and nothing_   
>  _Nothing and no one_   
>  _But still the goddess heart she won_

Sing, Sephiroth’s heart cried. Sing, sing, the music is empty. Sing, he is lonely. Sing with him.

He bit his tongue. He tasted blood.

Cloud faltered.

> _But I am not she, no-one’s savior_   
>  _I am no god and I hold no god’s favor_   
>  _I am not…_

He faltered. Faded. Sephiroth felt it slipping away, the spell cracking at the edges.

> _I…_

His voice broke. Shuddered. Sephiroth’s heart followed. Genesis had worked his magic well. The bard’s heart was a fickle thing. Without it, without the certainty, the power died. And Sephiroth felt it dying, like a bird in the crosshairs. Like blood in the water in a world full of shark’s.

And Sephiroth couldn’t stand it.

“Don’t stop.” He whispered into the echoing call, catching the edges of Cloud’s fraying spell. He felt it latch onto him, overwhelm him, like the tide, till he was drowning in the music in Cloud’s mind. The haunting call of the winds, the rise and fall of a heartbeat not his own. Sing, his heart screamed, sing sing sing. But he could not. He never had. It was dangerous. And yet…

Cloud gasped, and the music shuddered and lurched.

“Don’t stop,” Sephiroth repeated, a plea more than it was a spell. And for once, he was not turned away.

> _I am not a warrior bearing the light_   
>  _But though I will fail, I know I must fight_   
>  _Nothing, nothing_   
>  _No one, no one_   
>  _Only myself_   
>  _Only me_

The music faded. Not joy, but resolution. Not victory, but a question. Not quite a curse, but not a cure either. The last solemn notes of the wooden flute faded.

“Um,” Cloud’s voice whispered, not singing now, only rough as if from crying. “Are you… That is… Sephiroth?”

“I’m sorry,” Sephiroth said in reply, the words carefully chosen. Do no harm, speak carefully, he has been hurt enough already.

The was a long pause, then Cloud’s voice drifted through the halls again.

“Are you here to curse me too?” He asked, sounding tired.

Sephiroth closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall in exhaustion. The music had drained him. The attachment. He wanted…

“No.” He said after a long moment. “Please do not…” He hesitated. Chose and re-chose his words. “I hope you will forgive Genesis,” He said instead, not a command, not even a desire. He kept his voice flat and empty. “He is unwell.”

That rang true enough, but it was not a curse or a blessing or an attack. It was only true.

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch years. Sephiroth almost retreated. Then quiet footsteps approached. He held his ground, waiting.

Cloud stepped around the corner, his eyes dark with eyeliner, smudged from tears. His expression was tense and suspicious, but there was still that raw, glowing edge to him. That thing that drew Sephiroth every time he sang. The truth that rang through an imperfect voice.

“You look exhausted.” Cloud said after a long moment, confusion crossing his face. “Why are you down here”

“I wanted to be alone.” Sephiroth said before he could think to stop himself from answering truthfully.

“Sorry,” Cloud muttered. “I didn’t think anyone would—”

“No,” Sephiroth shook his head, stepping off the wall slowly. He felt the glitter and makeup on his cheeks tug lightly as he spoke. Knew he was a shining false idol to Cloud’s rough-hewn truth. “It was not…you I was escaping.”

Cloud’s lips quirked up at the corner in a charming half-smile.

“You jumped in my song.” He said, with an edge like happiness in his words. “I didn’t think you were the sort. You’re always so distant on stage.”

“It was beautifully sung.” Sephiroth suddenly felt that he didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to stare to blatantly.

Cloud was silent a moment, then he hummed softly, not musical but thoughtful. His hands hooked into the deep pockets of his pants, and Sephiroth envied him. His performance clothes never had pockets…

“I’m still planning to beat you,” Cloud informed him, rather bashfully. “But… Thank you. For helping me through the end there.”

“It was a good song.” Sephiroth brushed some of the glitter off his shoulder with a little scowl. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t bring you a stronger resolution.”

“It was resolution enough.” Cloud nodded to himself, leaning on the wall as he sized Sephiroth up.

Sephiroth didn’t know what to say to that. He cleared his throat after a moment of silence.

“I should—”

“What happened?” Cloud asked, interrupting him. “You’re different from the last time we saw you. We heard there was a problem, just like everyone else heard. That Genesis lost his voice? When he talked to me up there I could smell decay on his breath. That’s not…”

Sephiroth flinched. And he knew this time Cloud would have seen it. He couldn’t bring himself to care. His hands tightened around the neatly tailored lines of his white jacket.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked, worry clear in his voice.

“They forbade us to talk about it.” He whispered. “They’re making him work with me still. Making him do dirty work like poisoning you now that he’s no good for their idol narrative.”

“No good?” Cloud asked, a deep frown on his face. Sephiroth faltered, inspecting him, but he was whole. Healthy. Not sickening under his words.

“The last time I heard him sing he could have enchanted stars,” Cloud said after a moment more of silence. “What happened to him?”

“I did.” Sephiroth replied, the heavy truth of it tearing from him like a wound. He wondered if there was blood in his mouth with the admission. It was on his hands, he knew. Though it could never be seen.

Cloud stared, but he didn’t balk, or run. And Sephiroth…

Sephiroth had been SO alone. And he could hear music in his heartbeat. Something brutal and awful and ugly that had twisted him his whole life. So he let it carry him, careful not to let his words turn against anyone but himself.

“He hated being second fiddle. He was the one with an artist’s soul. The songs that weren’t provided by HR he created. He could sing down the stars, you’re right. He could have if he’d been anywhere but beside me. I don’t even remember what he said after the last round of competition. He was angry, and he made me angry too. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I should have watched my words.”

“What did you say?” Cloud asked, not quite matching his meter, not quite deepening the spiral of drums and anger, but close enough that Sephiroth knew he heard it.

“I told him he would rot without me.” Sephiroth hissed, feeling the acid on his tongue still. “And I left.”

The drums stopped. Cloud sucked in a breath, the implications setting in for him already.

“I didn’t mean to mean it.” Sephiroth whispered wearily. “I didn’t even think about it. Angeal found him the next morning, half dead.”

He closed his eyes against the memory of it. Against walking into Genesis’s dressing room to apologize and finding Angeal with Genesis cradled in his lap, trying to sing the life back into him, trying to stop the damage Sephiroth had done from taking any more from his friend.

“It was an accident.” Cloud said, his voice dull and soft.

“What sort of man am I,” Sephiroth whispered. “To mean such a thing even for a moment?”

“You’re like everyone else on earth.” Cloud said at last with a shrug.

Sephiroth yanked his eyes up to him, scowling hard.

“I most certainly am not.”

“You think no one’s ever hurt someone with words before?” Cloud shrugged roughly, his nose scrunching and his brows furrowing. “Anyone with as much power as you have could channel it to the wrong thing. Frankly it’s a wonder he survived. I think that’s proof enough that you didn’t intend to hurt him.”

“Cloud—”

“Have you tried to heal it?” Cloud asked, barreling over his words.

“I can’t.”

“Have you tried.”

“I wasn’t made to heal.”

“You’re a bard.”

“I’m a weapon. I was made to destroy not to cure. All I bring are death and pain and—”

“Stop _casting_ that!”

Sephiroth froze, staring at Cloud. He hadn’t noticed the drums in his ears.

“How long have you been putting that spell on yourself?” Cloud asked, a sort of angry disbelief in his voice.

Sephiroth didn’t have an answer. He swayed unsteadily, and Cloud’s hand, nails painted black, caught his arm carefully.

“How long have your bosses been putting it on you?” He asked instead, and Sephiroth couldn’t answer.

“I can’t.” He finally whispered. “Even if I knew how to heal, he won’t talk to me. He and Angeal. They’re gone.”

Cloud was silent a moment, watching him through hard, makeup-darkened eyes.

“If only,” He said slowly. “You had access to a microphone and a stage where you’ll be so amplified no one can’t hear you.”

Sephiroth was still a moment. For the first time in a long time, the heavy beat of his heart didn’t feel hollow.

“I don’t know how.” He whispered, but it was less a curse now, and more a plea.

“I know a tune,” Cloud whispered. “But the words will have to be yours. I can teach it to you. And the band… Well, I’ll have to ask Barret. But I think they’d be willing to help.”

“Your drummer?”

“Uh, yeah? He’s the leader of Avalanche. I just sing for them.”

“Ah… You… Would do that for me? It will probably get you kicked out of the competition.”

“It will probably get you in worse trouble than that.” Cloud said. “Besides. We both know Shinra was never going to let Avalanche win this. What do you say?”

Sephiroth looked down at the floor, taking a slow breath.

“Help me.” He whispered. “Please.”

“We don’t have long,” Cloud whispered. “Learn fast. And remember–It will have to be your words.”

* * *

“So that’s what’s up.” Cloud whispered to his bandmates, arms around the shoulders of Tifa and Zack as he huddled in to whisper to them. The crowd outside was ramping up, their idle chatter turning to excited yelling. “He nearly killed his friend, I taught him a healing spell, and we’ve gotta back him up. You guys in?”

“This is gunna piss the hell outta the Shinra.” Barret rumbled.

“So you’re on board?”

“Bet your ass I am!” Barret roared. “Zack, Aerith, your first priority is music backup. Tifa, you’re with me, we’re gunna get ‘em hooked in and disable whatever they’ve got cued up for him. Cloud, get that son of a gun he’s healing as close as you can.”

“Uh, how?” Cloud asked, frowning.

“Dunno,” Barret said. “You’re the guy with that lead-singer vibe. Use that. Or your nail bat, whatever works.”

“Barret!” Cloud hissed. “Drop the nail bat thing, that was once.”

“It’s good of you, Spike.” Zack said warmly, ruffling Cloud’s hair. “We’ll back him up. Just like we would you.”

“It’s a better use of this stage than anything else we could do.” Aerith agreed softly.

“I’m so glad you trust us enough for this.” Tifa agreed softly, her grin turning from soft to wicked in an instant. “Now. Let’s go subvert this musical travesty into something actually worth doing.”

“Sorry about the prize money,” Cloud blurted. “I know we all could have used it.”

“You kidding?” Zack asked. “Once we get out of prison or whatever they do to us after this, we’re going to make a fortune going on the road together.”

“Har har, no one’s going to jail, Marlene’d be lonesome.” Barret rumbled. “Get moving! We’ve only got ten before they put him out there.”

Cloud broke from the group with a wordless shout that his bandmates echoed. He straightened, looking over towards the other side of the wings.

The crowd roared dimly in the distance. Sephiroth met his eyes from across the way. Cloud could hear the war drum of his heartbeat. He nodded firmly to him, and saw Sephiroth suck in a breath and try to center himself.

He’d never seen the Demon of Wutai look nervous before.

Zack sauntered over to one of the sound techs, striking up a friendly conversation while Aerith used her patented ‘I’m not a threat’ technique to sit on the floor and pretend to do breathing exercises. He pretended not to notice her patching her guitar and Zack’s bass in.

He didn’t have time to watch Barret and Tifa work their particular magic. He had his own task to handle. He squared his shoulders and started for the dressing rooms.

He heard Genesis before he saw him. The thready, soft sobbing through a closed door. He bit his lip, trying to work out his play. He looked down at his hands, rough with hard work, black nail polish that Tifa had helped him out with, studded bracelets and forearm guards. Right then. He knew what play to go with.

Cloud squared his stance, took a deep breath, and kicked down the door.

The face that jerked up to glare at him was not alone. The other figure was huge, imposing, clearly instantly furious. Cloud had forgotten about Angeal somehow. But his angry gaze stayed fixed on Genesis, on the unseeing eye and ruined skin on the right side of his face, the bangs pulled away from his destroyed face out of the public’s view. Cloud grit his teeth, taking a sharp breath.

“What the fuck—” Angeal started

“Nothing and no one,” Cloud snapped before Angeal could continue, before he could let sympathy and sorrow for Genesis’s injury overwhelm his determination. “Right? That’s what I am?”

“Get out.” Genesis snarled, and Cloud could almost smell the rot still on his breath from the doorway. He ignored it.

“Did they write you that script to ruin me like they write your songs?” He asked sharply.

“Leave,” Angeal ordered, squaring up, protecting his friend.

“You’d steal my voice like yours was stolen?” Cloud asked, righteously indignant. “Do you hate me that much?”

Genesis stiffened.

“What do you know?” He growled, the rasp low in his throat.

Cloud straightened at the challenge. But then their world was drowned out by the cheering. The clapping. Cloud turned, his heart sinking instantly in worry. He hadn’t realized it was so close to time. There was a buzz of static. Someone objected briefly. Then the cameras were on and rolling. Cloud caught just a glimpse of Sephiroth squaring his shoulders and walking onto stage.

“There’s no time.” He said, his hands clenching. “Get up.”

“What?” Angeal seemed more honestly confused now than outright angry.

“Get UP.” Cloud demanded, reaching out and gripping Genesis’s arm. The man screamed outright, but Cloud didn’t let him go. He dragged him out of the room, even as Angeal grabbed his hair to stop him. Shoved Genesis forward, so Angeal had to hurry to catch him, to keep him off the ground. And then it was enough. They were close enough. Because everything seemed to stop as they all caught sight of Sephiroth walking onto stage.

He moved with the air of a martyr, a slow walk, his hair flickering. It was done half-up, making him look younger. Softer. The first pounding beats of his music played, then cut off roughly as whatever Barret and Tifa had done took root. Genesis and Angeal froze, staring at him.

“What,” Angeal whispered again.

Cloud pushed past them, moving along the wings, eyes on Sephiroth as he stepped up to the center of the stage, hitting his mark. He stood there a long moment, just staring out at the crowd. When his eye slid right, they found Cloud’s gaze in the wings and held it a moment. Then he took a slow breath. Cloud could hear it shaking.

When he nodded, Aerith began to play.

The tune slipped off her fingers easily. She had been the one to teach it to Cloud, while she mended a tear in his knee. She’d sworn him to secrecy on its origins lying with her, but she’d taught him how to perform it all the same. With him, it could do a little. Mend a bruise, soften pain, scab a cut. Under her voice it became as if some wounds had never occurred. Barret said it was thanks to her song he hadn’t died from his arm’s loss.

When she played, it felt like the ground would swallow you. As if the world was crying out through her guitar. It was nothing like her wild, free, delightful runs and riffs when she played with Avalanche. It was old and powerful. Drawing on something so deep in the earth and in her that there were no words for it. And perhaps someone should have come and stopped her. Perhaps they would have. But she played so softly, so gently, that there was no soul not enraptured.

When Zack’s bass slid in to join her, it was a natural combining. A grounding. A humanizing element in an otherworldly spell.

They both trailed off to await the voice. Cloud watched Sephiroth swallow in their echo. Watched his eyes slide over to Cloud’s looking for help.

“Sing,” Cloud whispered with the air of command, and his order joined the song. Wrapped around it, around Sephiroth. And he watched Sephiroth accept.

> _With…_

Barely a whisper. Sephiroth swallowed. Tried again.

> _Within—_

He sang, his voice trembling, his sorrow palpable. Cloud held his breath for him. Sephiroth took a deep breath into the echoes of the music, Cloud felt it quiver and strain. But the spell didn’t shatter. Not yet.

> _Within me is an ocean_   
>  _Deep and dark and wild_   
>  _And it would drown you_   
>  _It would drown you_   
>  _It would drown you in the dark_

Cloud shivered. Gasped a breath. Tried not to be part of the spell. He had to stay outside. Stay on the side with Sephiroth as the spell wove over the whole crowd. A man was frozen with his hand over controls. He had them. Cloud hoped the words that chose him were right.

> _And sometimes I will wish it_   
>  _Wish all the worst for you_   
>  _For if you were in the darkness_   
>  _I would not be alone_
> 
> _And I know you are drowning_   
>  _I know I dragged you down_   
>  _You are tangled in the water_   
>  _Red in blue and brown._
> 
> _I know I made this thing of you_   
>  _Please still take my hand._   
>  _Reach back and I will help you_   
>  _I will not let you drown._
> 
> _I beg you_   
>  _I beg you_   
>  _Reach back_

Cloud saw it when the first person reached. A man in the crowd, silent and still till now. His hand jerked out and upwards, compelled by the words. Not his fault, but not Sephiroth’s target. For a moment Cloud thought that would break it. But then Sephiroth was straightening, and the music was changing. No longer Aerith and Zack, though they were playing. Something other. Something else.

And that was when the lights started.

They were green and swimming, sunbursts in the air of the theater. They coiled around Sephiroth, growing from the ground at his feet with the swell of sound that accompanied him. It was a sound of voices. Voices not heard in a thousand years from those not far far out at sea.

The voices of Bright Things.

The hands in the audience kept raising. Lifting. And Sephiroth closed his eyes, extended his hands, and sang. The lights spiraled out from beneath him, spread all around the auditorium. Then Cloud watched as they tore through the roof, tore out of the building, finding cracks and doorways.

The people watching, Cloud realized. People out in the world watching, raising their hands.

He turned to Genesis. Turned as Sephiroth sang, wordless now, strange and ancient. Siren, Cloud’s thoughts repeated over and over and over. Siren, siren, siren.

Genesis was staring. Still and silent. Standing curled around his middle. Cloud was watching when Sephiroth, unreal, beautiful, turned towards the man he’d sung for. He watched as Sephiroth reached out a hand, pleading. Forgiveness, his song begged. Forgive me. Let me help you. He didn’t need the microphone anymore.

And for a moment, for a terrible moment, Cloud was certain Genesis wouldn’t reach back. That his pride would doom him.

Then Angeal was there, an arm wrapping around Genesis’s back. And he took his hand. Met Genesis’s working eye. And they lifted his arm together.

The green was on him at once. Swirling, churning, as Sephiroth threw his head back, his song tearing from him, tearing through him, the same as Aerith’s healing song but MORE. And Cloud watched the green swallow Genesis whole, binding to the terrible scars on his body.

“Cloud!” Aerith called through the music.

Cloud jerked his head up, looking across the way. Aerith’s guitar was abandoned, and Zack’s bass too.

“It’s too much for him!” She called to him, barely audible over the song.

Cloud looked to Sephiroth. Saw the glow in his eyes. The strain on his face. But he wouldn’t stop. Cloud knew it. He wouldn’t stop until every pull was gone. Until he’d reached back to every hand reaching out. He could feel it in the music. This was a man who’d never healed before, and he couldn’t tell one ache from another, couldn’t restrain himself now that he had the capacity. Cloud stepped out onto the stage, feeling every inch of his impotent humanity. He knew he was seen then. Knew he was alone. Sephiroth was giving everything, hands outstretched as the goddess.

And Cloud pushed his way into the ancient song.

> _Breathe_

He sang, not shattering the spell, but trying to shift it. His command was swallowed by the ancient song, but Sephiroth’s eyes turned to him.

> _Breathe, now, breathe_

Cloud sang again, stepping slowly closer and closer. The green parted before him. He stepped into the spotlight with Sephiroth, reaching up to take his hands. He felt it at once, the immense pull. The immense drain.

> _All worst wounds are healing now_   
>  _All the cuts are scabbed_   
>  _So breathe_   
>  _Breathe_   
>  _Set it down_
> 
> _All the scars feel softer now_   
>  _All the pain subsiding_   
>  _Calm the ocean_   
>  _Damp the tide_   
>  _Breathe_   
>  _Breathe_   
>  _Breathe_

Sephiroth sucked in a breath, eyes fluttering shut. His hands closed around Cloud’s, holding him in return. The song faded. Swelled. And then the ancient song was gone, and it was just them. Just the two of them on stage.

Sephiroth opened his eyes softly, just a sliver, just a glimmer of color. And then he was sinking to his knees. Cloud sank with him, holding on, drawing Sephiroth against him as the man crumpled forward, till his soft silver hair was draped over Cloud’s tattered clothes.

A beat later, Cloud heard Sephiroth heave a relieved, exhausted laugh. A beat after that, the crowd exploded.

They may as well have been a continent away for all Cloud and Sephiroth cared.

A moment later someone was racing out, and Cloud tensed to stop them. To guard the man whose soul had touched his twice that day. He wouldn’t let them hurt him for this. But the redhead who dropped to his knees by them was no threat–one eye pale and unseeing but no longer swallowed by the smell of rot.

“Tell me he’s not dead,” Genesis whispered, his voice rich and beautiful once more.

“He’s not dead.” Cloud said, for himself as well as Genesis, shifting to give Sephiroth to his friends as Angeal came to join them. “He’s alright.”

But Sephiroth wouldn’t let go of him, so Cloud gave up trying to move him. Gave up as the announcer stumbled through that there would be a break. That the judges would need to deliberate on what this meant for the competition.

“To hell with your competition!” Genesis snarled at him. “Just get out of our way and close the damn curtain!”

“You heard the man,” Barret growled, pulling the curtain down with a strong yank as Aerith and Zack went out to join their huddle on stage.

Cloud looked down at Sephiroth where he lay in his arms, pale and sweat-soaked and beautiful. For a moment he thought he saw a glimmer of scales along the side of his face. Siren, he thought again, and held him all the closer.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered into his shirt. “Sing with me again soon.”

“Nothing could stop me,” Cloud whispered back as he watched Sephiroth’s eyes fall closed in exhaustion. “Nothing in the world.”

And it was True.


	2. Knights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cruel Lord Shinra’s knights are not the vicious killers Cloud expected.

[ _< For more of Tomo's art, click here!>_ ](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

On the third day of the seventh month after his mother the queen was murdered, Prince Cloud of Nibelheim stood before the tournament grounds with his father’s sword strapped to his side and a hood obscuring as much of his face as he dared. He was not well known so he did not fear being recognized overmuch; his kingdom was small and peaceful, and not much given to getting involved with the goings on of the great courts. **  
**

Not that that had done his family any good in the end. They had been slaughtered for their land just as surely as Wutai had been.

Cloud had only escaped thanks to Tifa, Zangan’s youngest knight in training. She’d pulled him through the walls and away before he could be found, blood-spattered and wide-eyed. He’d had to leave her behind for this, though. She never would have never permitted him to do something this stupid. This ill advised. This likely to get him killed…

But if Lord Shinra was willing to send killers under shadow of night into his mother’s bedroom, could slaughter loyal knights and servants, could lay waste to those who would not bow… Then Cloud had no shame in disguising himself to get close enough to kill him.

He couldn’t help but think as he walked ever closer to the fairgrounds, feeling every inch as filthy and exhausted as he was sure he looked, that maybe Tifa had been right and it was not only a death trap, but a fruitless one at that.

He swallowed hard against his sand-dry throat and marched onward, his leather armor chafing, his boots sucking against the mud of the too-well-trodden field just beyond the rings of tents. He had a long way yet to walk, judging by the number of pavilions, tents, and stands set up along his way. Banners waved in the sharp summer wind, tugged and pulled, drying from the last night’s rain.

He kept his eyes lifted, scanning those waving banners for the one he sought. The one he’d seen through the gaps in his mother’s carved dressing partition. Where she’d hidden him to keep him safe. Where her blood had sprayed across his face when they cut her down.

Cloud would see the banner of the green sun fall, no matter the cost.

Cloud walked steady in his mud-stained boots. Walked feeling his heart in his throat with eagerness, with anxiety, with fear and rage and retribution. His fervor faded slowly with the sun. As night began to fall the vendors started to shudder their stalls, and the drunken merry hoards of revelers cleared the mud-churned isles between the tents and the grounds wherein the hastiludes took place. Cloud had heard much cheering, and great clashes of metal. Some boyish piece of him had longed to fight through the crowd, to watch the tourney, to forget for even a little while why he had come here.

He had always longed to see the games in person. Even over the heads of the crowd he’d seen dancers with a great painted dragon puppet, swooping and diving on the ends of long sticks to the delight of shrieking children nearby.

He had kept his grim focus instead. There had been no sign of the green sun banner.

It would have been so much easier if there was any rhyme or reason to the camps. Any sense to who had pitched where, to how one related to the next. But banners blurred into each other, sometimes even from one tent to the next, back and forth, the two houses mingling, sometimes up to a third.

And with the sun fading, a sad fact was beginning to occur to him. He had no torchlight to hunt by, and no place to sleep till the dawn. Once the last rays of sunset abandoned him he would have to stop where he was or risk losing what progress he had made.

It would not be his first night sleeping beneath the stars, in this shadow that his life had become. Would not even be the worst. The sky was still clear, the ground terribly churned by the many feet, but at least no longer as wet as it had once been. He still had his cape, to save the clothes on his back the worst of it.

It was as he was considering curling up behind one of the empty wooden stalls, where he would at least be a less easy target, that he saw it in the dying light. The flicker of green on shining white, turned rust gold by the sunset. And at once his hand was at his hip, on his father’s sword and the empty coinpurse, long since drained on his travels thus far.

He should have seen to that, like Tifa had wanted. Should have sought out a lord or an ally, someone to employ him or be aligned against the lords Shinra.

But his heart wanted what it wanted. And it begged for the blood of that sun.

Gone was all thought of sleep, of rest. Gone were his aching, blistered feet, and the chafing of leather on his sweat-cracked skin. Gone was his uncertainty. He stood feet from where the man who’d taken his life lay, no doubt settling in for the evening himself. He would strike him down with his father’s blade, and he had no doubt that he would be struck down in turn. He was in the greatest gathering of knights in all the land, about to enter a warmonger’s tent. His bloodthirsty hounds would be on him in moments. He would have to act fast.

He moved slowly closer, keenly aware of the sound his boots made in the mud, wishing he’d spotted it slightly earlier, when there were still people to hide behind. Now the last ray of sun were fading and the dark and quiet was falling over the camp. From somewhere he could hear a merry bard’s group striking up Hole in the Wall, and the happy laughing of dancers. But no such revelry came from the Shinra camp.

Cloud’s right hand went to his sword’s hilt, gripping it tightly. The grip felt unsteady in his sweating palms, his heart too shaky to sustain him. He knew he was no weakling, and yet he could find no strength. His rage made him weak, and he cursed it for that, even as he moved ever onward.

His eyes were so fixed on the banner, his attention so focused, that the flash of silver in the dark nearly escaped him. As it was he saw it only in time to drag his sword halfway from its scabbard, deflecting the strike only barely. The crash of metal rang in the night.  
  
The force of the blow sent Cloud stumbling back, falling into the muck of the road as he scrambled to free his sword, to have some defense when the next stroke fell.  
  
There was a broadsword’s blade pressed with delicate precision to his throat before he could scramble free. A metal boot stepped on the edge of his cloak, holding him down in the mud without any need to touch him. Cloud stared up at the form looming over him with a sick sense of failure and dread.

His features were not human, but carved and gleaming, like polished pewter. His helmet had a cascade of silver down the back, fine and light as silk. There was a faint gleam behind the dark eye holes of the mask. Something liquid and human, staring down at him.

Cloud stared up, wordless in horror. He swallowed, feeling the tip of the sword drag against his Adam's apple as he did.

“Foolish,” whispered the night above him, voice low and dark. “To so brazenly approach.”

He lifted the blade, and Cloud struggled his father’s sword into place, watching the knight lift the broadsword, knowing that the block would only postpone the inevitable, that he would die here in the mud like the fool Tifa had called him that he would see his mother, would…

“Hold!” Another voice called, the sound of boots through mud approaching. “Sephiroth, hold.”  
  
The voice was light, almost laughing, and Cloud didn’t know whether to scream in frustration or terror as the arcing silver blade paused in the air.  
  
“My friend,” The voice laughed easily, and Cloud watched another knight walk up, his helmet tucked under his arm, his gauntleted hand cupping the blade of the man called Sephiroth’s sword. “You cannot simply kill someone in the dirt in the middle of a festival. Why, this mud will never dry if we keep wetting it!”

“He means the house ill.” Sephiroth said, though he lifted his sword away from the gauntlet the new man held against it. Cloud stared up at his savior, his dark hair and scarred cheek. The grin full of delight and vigor, with a suspiciously sweet dimple at its corner.

“Ooh, ‘He means the house ill,’” The dark knight repeated in mocking tones, bobbing his head like a lord’s fool, playful and easy as if he had not stopped a killing. “Come now, we are here for revelry and peace! Stop making war where there is none.”

“He carries a blade.”

“He’s at a tourney.”

“He would draw it.”

“Perhaps he felt the silver night shadows stalking him. Which to his credit, you were, my dear friend. Do stand down and let our friend up, won’t you?”

A sound like a growl came from behind the mask. But the silver knight stepped back and away off of Cloud’s cloak. And though he did not sheith his blade, he lowered it to his side.

Cloud sucked in a breath, shuddering on the ground, his father’s sword still clutched in his hand, the flat pressed to his other palm from where he’d braced to take the strike. The dark-haired knight turned to him, Sephiroth forgotten behind him.

“There now, friend, do give me your hand that I might aid you? My brother in arms is quick to defend our lord, but he intends no harm, and I am certain he could be convinced to right any ill with a nightcap and perhaps some of that delicious mutton I know he has been hiding.”

“My…” Cloud stared at the hand offered his way, the black gauntlet shining only softly in the evening. He glanced to the tabard of the green sun snug across the man’s chest, the green and white tails of the formal dress hanging below his knees. A knight of Shinra’s own, a man of no small stature. And yet, to proclaim the man enemy would be to fall beneath either his blade or Sephiroth’s. And the darker knight still had his helmet below one hand, and offered his other to Cloud, guileless and easy, as if Cloud did not still hold a blade.

“My thanks,” Cloud managed at last. “And my, ah… Apologies. For causing your concern good sirs.”  
  
He forced himself to release the blade of his father’s sword. Allowed the knight of his enemy to haul him to his feet with one hand, his grin only brightening with his words.

“No concern on my part but for your blood on the poor drenched earth,” the man said with a grin. “But come! We will speak no more of what could have been and only what shall be! I am Sir Zachary Fair, and yes, I kid you not in that.”

“Sir Fair,” Cloud repeated, feeling a smile slip onto his own face despite himself. “How you have lived to that name in my estimation this night.”

“If you will, you may call me ‘Fair Sir!’” He said, instantly brightening at Cloud’s stumbling, anxious play at words. “For I have been told I am mighty fair in more way than one. My murderous friend here is Sephiroth! He will tolerate no nickname or moniker, but I assure you he is as good a knight as any man I know, and as loyal as finest hound to his lord and friend both. I regret only that you met his fangs first and not his bark, for he is a merry presence in his own way.”

“Merry should a man not be who watches a would-be murderer rise.” The masked man growled again.

“Then you should be merry, good my friend, for I am certain our boy here is merely lost and frightened. Behold this hapless face, these soulful eyes, that sorrowful slack grip on the blade! He would be defeated by the tent flap ere he came across a victim. Begging your pardon good sir…?”

He trailed off, looking to Cloud for a name, and Cloud froze up. Deception was not part of his forte. So he blurted the first thing he thought.

“My name died before I came here,” He blurted, unsteadily. “I came only to make a new one, not to wallow in that grief.”

“Only to wallow in the mud then?” Zack suggested, though his smile had shifted, and though he should have felt mocked, Cloud only laughed, weak and shallow.

“Come then my sir, have you no lord to support you in this tourney?”

“Good Sir Fair, I am not even a knight in troth. I carry my father’s sword, and hope to find some purpose.”

“You hear this, Sephiroth?” Zack cried, appearing outright distraught. “This little ray of sunshine you so nearly squelched has not even a lord to murder for. Do you not feel ashamed?”

“Rarely,” Sephiroth replied. “Will you make mockery of his state?”

“No, I shall make him merry with wine, and so shall you.” Zack replied. “For you have startled the blood from the little sunbeam’s face, and I believe some good red may replenish it.”

For a moment there was tense silence, then the masked man inclined his head to them both, lifting his sword to sheathe it against his back.

“You have my apologies, then. Forgive my mistaking your intent. I will not harm you further, and would supply your wine as my friend requests, if you will it.”

“As easily forgiven as easily mistook,” Cloud said, his nerves jangling but a flutter of hope in his chest. Two knights of Shinra deceived and soon to take him drinking. Perhaps not what he’d wished, but too much luck to surrender. “And my apology as well, Sir Sephiroth. You had every right to strike me down, and still do an you will.”

“I think better not to, good Sunbeam.” The man behind the mask said the impervious carved face not bending in the slightest to the soft humor in his tone. “Let us bow to the most Fair and bid him lead us on. I’ll uncork my wine to lend color to your cheeks once more.”

“An’ the ladies shall weep for jealousy,” Zack sighed, throwing an arm around Cloud’s shoulders.

They did not go to their lord’s tent, but turned away towards the west. Cloud followed along, spluttering as Zack’s implications set in, but if the silver knight was offended, he made no show of such, and voiced no complaint.

And so it was that he entered one of the green-sun bannered tents, not as a murderer, but as a welcomed guest. And so it was he watched the feared silver knight Sephiroth remove his pewter mask and helmet, revealing the fine shining fall of an ornament as none but his own hair, and the dark pools of his eyes glinted all the brighter in the candle light than they had behind his mask.

And when he uncorked his wine and poured three glasses, Cloud did not hesitate to drink, trying not to look at the face as fine as porcelain that silver had been hiding.

* * *

The first drink was formality. An invitation made, an offer accepted. A toast to misunderstandings. The second was Fair’s doing, an insistence on toasting to friendship. The third Sephiroth poured unprompted, filling Cloud’s glass before his own. And when he finished pouring, he lit another lantern, brightening the cheery glow of his pale and wealthy tent.

Cloud hiccuped softly into his hand, shaking his head before drinking.

“I ought not,” he said. “I’ve not eaten enough to be steady.”

“Why then, we shall eat!” Sir Fair proclaimed quick as a cat to his feet and just as quickly leaving the two of them. “I shall fetch us what I can, though I daresay the dining shall not be so luxurious as it was before the sundown! I know a little tavern down the way that will supply us stew if no more.”

He ducked out of the tent before popping back in, picking his helmet off the cushioned seat by Sephiroth’s doorway and shooting them both a cheeky grin.

“Do try not to kill each other?”

“Is he always so?” Cloud asked a moment later, bewildered and soft-headed from the admittedly fine wine. “He seems to take pleasure in playing the fool more so than the knight.”

“His spirits incline him to it.” Sephiroth said, his own goblet held loosely, sitting on the cushioned floor of his room, with his bright eyes fixed on Cloud. “Tell me, Sunbeam–and forgive me I will call you thus till I know your name proper–If you’ve no lord, what brings you hence?”

“My lord is dead as my name.” Cloud said, with no small trace of bitterness. “Would she’d had a knight such as you when creatures came skulking through her home.”

“Very few have knights such as I.” Sephiroth said. “Do you seek employment then?”

“I’ve as much to my name as I have name, which is to say that I have neither, good sir Sephiroth. I have my father’s sword, and I have what I wear and what I am. More than that I cannot claim.”

“Yet you drink with a refined grace, and your accent proves your blood.” Sephiroth replied, and for the first time since his sword was bare, Cloud felt the danger. “Have you no ally to turn to?”

“Nay none,” Cloud said wearily. “I came to fight to gain some, I suppose.”

“Fighting as you did before, you will be lucky to gain more than scorn.”

“Do not mock me, sir, I beg you. I know I am ill suited to this. I was always told my hands let themselves better to papers and needles than battle and blades. And yet there is little need of paper in a world so given to war.”

“There is a great deal more paper in war than you may think, you strange Sunbeam. Perhaps you should tend to a quill to save your pride and skin both.”

“I’ve need of a sword yet.” Cloud whispered, and stared down into his wine.

Sephiroth did not speak a while, but neither did he seem suspicious. He looked into his own wine glass, seeming displeased with what he saw within.

“So may many of us say,” He said at last and drained his dregs of wine. “Will you hear some Beowulf? You seem in need of different thoughts.”

“Gladly hear, good sir.” Cloud whispered, alarmed to find his voice watery and his vision blurring.

“Good then. I shall not start from the beginning, for it takes too long for my liking. We begin here.”

Cloud watched without comment as Sephiroth found his place, his hands bare of armor as the rest of him was, save the breastplate, decorated with the green sun’s tabard.

“ _His father’s warrior were wound round his heart,_ ” Sephiroth read, his voice low and easy. “ _With golden rings, bound to their prince by his father’s treasure. So young men build the future, wisely open-handed in peace, Protected in war; so warriors earn their fame, and wealth is shaped with a sword._ ”

Cloud was not aware of drifting off, but he felt the wineglass lifted from his hand, and the softness of something draped across him.

He woke not ong later, holding still in the dark, and listening to quiet words exchanged between friends, his enemies by trade.

“He’ll not last a day if he competes,” Zack was saying. “He’s skin and bone, even if he were not skilless. What killed his name, I dare say it near killed him.”

“Would you take in yet more strays?” Sephiroth asked, sounding weary. “He is not a child to be guarded, Zack. I trust in you more than any other, but I hold by what he said. He meant violence tonight, as little as he may have managed it.”

“And would you harm him for it still?” Zack asked.

There was silence a moment, then Zack’s soft laughter.

“Do not speak to me of strays, Sephiroth. You know as well as I that we have no place to speak on that. Nor on violence, nor on weakness.”

“We have a duty to our lord.”

“Oh yes, and I will keep it. But not by slaughtering every sunbeam dares to dance in his eyes. Look you at him and tell me you would fear his workings.”

“I fear the attachment you have grown to him in mere minutes, and nothing more of him.”

“The attachment I have grown,” Zack scoffed. “You have swaddled a muddy stranger in your finest furs on your floor.”

“In penitence for his close call with death.”

“In affection for a sweet stranger, surprisingly good drinking company and great fun in a festival that has lacked all.”

“What would you have me do then?”

“He could hold that sword if he knew how.”

“Zachary…”

“Only till he’s on his feet. The tourney is only three weeks more. Perhaps at the end he will be more than a stranger to us, and I have no doubt that he will prosper for the company.”

“And if he does mean ill?”

“Then we will not learn it by eschewing his acquaintance.” Zack said flippantly. “And perhaps his ill meanings will soften by association, for I do think he is fond of us already. Though it may be my considerable pride.”

“Or your considerable drunkenness.”

“Indeed, or that as well. Though if you do not mind me saying…”

“I very near certainly do, Fair.”

“You have never read to _me_ from Beowulf.”

Cloud considered feigning sleep longer, but the scent of stew had caught up to him, and his stomach gave a traitor’s rumble. The two knights silenced themselves with speed, and Cloud made a great show of groaning and burrowing deeper into the soft furs that surrounded him.

“Ah, the sunbeam’s stomach demand satisfaction, I see!” Zack crowed. “Arise sun, and see it satisfied! 'Tis a duel at dawn, and the weapon is stew. Dawn, you see Sephiroth, for the sunbeam is awakening.”

“So I see.” Said Sephiroth, but he only nodded when Cloud sat up sheepishly, still muzzy headed from wine.

They did not speak more of their plans or the tourney, but Cloud ate gladly his first true meal in days, and he felt their eyes appraising him, even as they drew him into the retelling of those events he had missed having only arrived that day.

* * *

He had, perhaps, intended to take his leave. Not to let himself chance growing closer to those he would inevitably betray for his mother. But though they wore the green sun he hated, it was so easy to ignore it when they were speaking with him.

He intended to bid them farewell after that late night of drinking and food. Of laughter and good-natured ribbing. Of the fox-sly smiles of Sephiroth’s humor, and the crow’s guffaw of Zack’s.

But Sephiroth never bade him leave, and when he was ready to retire he only waved to Zack and Cloud, turning his back on the pair of them and pillowing his head on his arm. The silver banner of his hair splayed out on the lush carpets that served as his flooring.

“Ought I—” Cloud had started, only to be waved down by Zack’s hand.

“Stay,” Zack bade him, and so Cloud stayed, with so little encouragement. It was a testament to how lonesome he had been. How desperate. And that he fell asleep in the house of his enemy for the second time the same day was testament to how equal his desperation for sleep had been.

Which was how he found himself waking to a firm grip shaking him awake and a statue’s face staring down at him.

His startled yell was answered by a gale of laughter from the room’s other occupant–Zack, but fully armed again, dark and dangerous in his knight’s regalia. He wore his helm for the first time since Cloud had laid eyes on him, the red crest spilling down his helmet making him all the more striking, and his face-guard lifted so Cloud could see his pleasant grin.

“Come, Sunbeam!” He cried, as if he had not himself been up till the night was more morning than itself. “We have decided if you are to stand a chance, you shall have to learn!”

“You will soon learn,” Sephiroth said from behind his mask. “That there is no force on this world so dangerous as a Fair man with a mind to accomplish something. Best of luck, little Sunbeam.”

And so began Cloud’s first day of training. With Sephiroth bowing his absence and leaving him and Zack in his tent, and Zack blithely suggesting breakfast and a splash in the lake to get the worst of Cloud’s mud free till they could find him a change of armor.

Cloud meant to object. To the charity, to the familiarity, to the whole idea. Instead he asked Zack if there wasn’t something he could do to repay him the kindness, and was answered with a beaming man asking him for advice on which of his lady suitors he should pick, only to be informed that he was already betrothed, but he liked to hear others confirm his choice.

True to his word, Zack trained him. It was nothing like Cloud’s old swordwork teacher, now dead in his home. Zack was far more interested in teaching by example, and by soundly rapping Cloud on the head with the flat of his blade or his fists, whichever came in contact first through a break in Cloud’s defenses.

They both made contact often enough for Cloud to be rubbing his head well before they were done.

“Well, none can criticize your tenacity!” Zack said, clearly eager to look on the bright side.

When Zack was done with him, Cloud did not know what would come net, but he was towed along at Zack’s side through the crowd, just in time to bear witness to the joust. Sephiroth rode a massive grey horse, its black mane and tail stark contrast to its shining coat. Sephiroth did not remove his mask for the joust, a faceless warrior to the screaming hoards.

He unseated every knight who faced him, and nearly killed one. The audience cried out in delight at the bloody spectacle, and Sephiroth wiped a hand down his horse’s sweat-soaked flank.

That night Sephiroth demanded his hands in his tent, his mask set aside and his hair pulled down into a lower, more relaxed braid. He wrapped the blisters with a liniment that smelled sweet and spicy.

“They will toughen.” Sephiroth assured him, and did not make other comment on how delicate Cloud’s hands must have been to have worn so badly under a single day of training.

The next day was harder, but Cloud did not give in. And at the end of their training, Zack praised his progress.

“I think perhaps were Sephiroth to try cleaving you in two tonight, I might not have to jog quite so fast to save you,” Zack said warmly in praise.

“Your jests are most appreciated I assure you,” Cloud growled wearily, rolling his aching shoulders.

They arrived at the grounds in time to watch Sephiroth disarm a knight’s morning star with his sword and a twist of his wrist and shoulders. His opponent had yielded scarce moments later, and the impassive silver face had looked up to the overlooking stands. Cloud did not follow his gaze. He knew the man he hated sat there, watching. He could not let Zack see the rage on his face at the sight of him. Not yet.

He meant to dig for information. Instead he inquired after Sephiroth’s health when he returned home.

“My horse is worn to the bone,” Sephiroth said instead of answering. “You shall have to take the joust tomorrow Zack.”

“Surely it has nothing to do with jealousy over where our time has been spent,” Zack said with a grin. “But fair enough. My little Whinny shall ride circles ‘round the competition.”

“He has not named his horse ‘Whinny’ has he?” Cloud asked Sephiroth that evening as the man inspected his hands.

“Tis not the worst he’s done.” Sephiroth replied. “I have at home a hunting dog he gifted me most aptly named ‘A Dog.’”

“Is ‘A’ his first name, or his honorific?”

“It is very hard to tell good sunbeam, for he is a dog, and will not correct me should I omit one or the t’other. But fie on him he shall have no name on that, for it would make Fair pout terribly.”

The next day it was Sephiroth who accompanied him to train, his expressionless mask firmly in place as always outside of his tent. Cloud had not seen him so much as take a sip of water where he could be observed outside his disguise.

Sephiroth was nothing like Zack in training. He did not rap Cloud for his failures, not even lightly. He stopped with his blade whispers away from Cloud’s flesh. Knocked him to his knees. Generally terrorized him in everything but spirit. His voice was calm and quiet beneath the mask when he corrected him, and his hands were steady when he fixed Cloud’s grip and posture. There was no cruelty in his lesson, but Cloud was thoroughly trounced by the end.

“Not hopeless.” Sephiroth proclaimed when Cloud could no more. “Come. Let us see if we can catch Zack unseated.”

Zack did not lose his seat, though he nearly lost from the wildness of his mare. She was as over-eager as he, and twice as bloodthirsty it seemed. She snaked her head out to try and bite the other horse across the divider as they charged, rising offense from the opposing lord’s knights, and general delight in the crowd.

“You terrible awful Whinny,” Zack was scolding his mare. “And they told me stallions were too hot blooded for jousting, you foul beast of a warhorse. How unsightly of you. Do apologize.”

And with a light touch of his heel and a gentle tug on the rains, his supposedly wild horse bent into a stately bow that sent gales of laughter through the crowd, and lightened even the scowl on his jousting opponent’s face.

Cloud insisted on helping Zack groom his marvelous mare, and took great pleasure in rubbing down her face while she gently leaned into his touches, all the while lifting her legs away when Zack tried to clean them and generally making a nuisance of herself. Sephiroth did not join them in her stall, but leaned against his own horse— who he called Bucephalus II—in the makeshift barn. The grey gelding nuzzled against his masked face with all the sweetness that Whinny lacked.

Cloud walked back with them to Sephiroth’s tent, laughing openly at his companions.

When they arrived he found a wrapped parcel, bearing clothes for him. Not the finest of regalia, but better by far than his stinking and frayed attire.

“I can never repay such kindness and favor as you both show me,” He bemoaned as he gazed down at the fabric in his hands.

“You repay us in the delight of your company for now,” Zack said warmly. “And I am certain will one day repay us in valor, young knight to be.”

Sephiroth spoke nothing of repayment, only watching with an expression Cloud could not define, but which matched his mask eerily well.

Cloud could not help but note they had not included their lord’s symbol on his garments, and he was grateful. That gift he could not have done else but scorn.

So his days passed in a haze of more delight and camaraderie than he had dared hope for in all his life, much less in the miserable months since his mother’s loss.

But even as he delighted in it, he knew that his own heart could not stand the two-facedness long. And soon all of his nightmares were of his mother’s blood spattered on his face, and Sephiroth the one outside the screen with her blood on his sword.

He wanted to believe it not to be so. And so he forced it away, and Sephiroth wrapped his hands in sweet-smelling salve each night, till the blisters gave way to new calluses, and the touches became something less necessary.

* * *

The uneasy peace shattered the moment Cloud had feared it would. It had been longer than he’d dared hope for. Weeks of their friendship and their kind acts of service towards him. Weeks of wine and the slow learning of battle under their tutelage. Of wearing the soft greys and blues of the clothes they had gifted him. Of trying to earn his keep by helping clean their armor, their horses, their weaponry.

All of this they accepted with good grace, but never demanded. They requested only his company, and he knew they would have forgiven him readily for withholding that.

It broke his heart to know, when the time came, that it was over. Broke it more to know they would no doubt be in some difficulty on his account.

But the moment he crossed paths with the Lord Shinra in person, he could no more have restrained his heart than Zack could have restrained his horse when she saw him under threat.

“Ah, so here at last is the sparrow you’ve taken under your wings then?” The lord Shinra laughed, pleasantly drunk and rosy with the pleasure of having watched his knights victorious once again.

“Not so much a sparrow as a cuckoo my lord.” Said Cloud, surprised by how low and furious his voice had become.

“My Sunbeam, do not play so,” Zack scolded at once, trying to turn the words to humor. “For Sephiroth’s mistaking was weeks ago now, and has already been long laughed at by our lord’s table.”

“Sephiroth did not mistake,” Cloud spat, pulling his glove free to slap the Shinra across the face with its gentle leather. “Usurper, murderer, my mother’s blood I see sprayed across your face.”

He moved to slap him again, but his hand was caught in a grip like a vice. He did not look up at the impassive mask looking down on him.

“I see.” Said Shinra, sobered by the slap. “Less a sparrow than the cygnet of a dead swan. Well met, Once-Prince.”

“I challenge,” Cloud spat, feeling the blood rise in his face and the tears well in his eyes. “In the name of my mother, queen of Nibelheim.”

“I call in my second to meet you in my stead.” Lord Shinra said without a trace of hesitance. “So he may right the error he made in trusting you.”

“Coward,” Cloud hissed.

“Name your terms, Cygnet.”

“My lands, my kingdom, and YOUR dishonor.”

“A high wager for a sorrowful weak bet. Still, I will accept your turns. On the other end of the scale balance your life, for that is my desire. And the end of the Strife line with you. Sunrise will see you undone, little so-called ‘sunbeam.’”

He turned to leave, and Cloud shuddered in rage, in the desire to stab him, but Sephiroth’s hand stayed him.

“Knights!” Called the king.

“Stay near Whinny,” Cloud heard Sephiroth whisper beneath the mask. And then without a glance he released him and pulled away, following his lord.

Zack hovered a moment, looking at Cloud with a look of stark shock.

“You throw your life away,” he whispered, wounded.

Cloud did not answer him, and stood alone as Zack was towed by his invisible oath to follow Lord Shinra.

He wandered the grounds a long while, alone for the first time in so long. He felt empty, for all he had been raging a short while ago. Of course the coward Shinra would choose a second. And Sephiroth would kill him in the morning, as he should have weeks ago.

Yet Cloud could regret none of it. His heart would not have had him do else than he had done. And when he wandered till his feet led him to the stalls, and the stable workers had become so used to him that they waved him in and let him pass by to rub Zack’s wild mare’s ears, and sneak small pats to Bucephalus II when Whinny’s jealousy allowed.

The hour was late when they came to meet him.

“Foolish little Sunbeam,” Zack scolded, even as he swept Cloud into a crushing hug. “I thought you wiser.”

“You thought me wiser?” Cloud choked on sudden sorrow. “You who wear a tabard soaked in my mother’s blood beneath your sweet smile?”

Zack should have shunned him for the harsh words, but he only held him harder.

“We have brought you a pack of supplies,” Sephiroth said softly. “You can take one of our horses. Either would carry you gladly. You can run, Cloud. This does not have to end in your blood.”

Cloud shook his head hard, pulling back from Zack’s harms and raking a hand through his hair. He turned to Sephiroth and balked, finding him without his helmet. Without his mask.

“I beg of you.” Sephiroth said softly. “Do not force my hand.”

“I am sorry only to have deceived you,” Cloud whispered, his voice shaking as he met Sephiroth’s tortured eyes. “You were right on that first night. I came for blood. But not for yours.”

“Do not think for a moment that you deceived me, Prince.” Sephiroth said, a sudden and agonized passion in his voice. Cloud froze as the man captured his arms in a gentle hold, stepping up before him. Tender hands that had wrapped his wounds. Skillful arms that had held him to correct his posture in training. That had lingered perhaps a moment too much.

“I have known from the moment your hood fell who you were, Prince Cloud Strife, Heir to Nibelheim, rightfully vengeful to my lord. Do not believe for an instant that you have betrayed me in any way I did not forsee and choose to ignore.”

“I do not suppose you thought to warn me and forgot?” Zack asked, his own voice choked with emotion. “For I looked forward only to a strengthening friendship and new brotherhood, not to the blood of my friends mingling in the dirt for the pleasure of the man who now owns their fates.”

“I am sorry, Zack,” Cloud whispered. “I did not intend this. I came only to kill him and die. I did not… I did not expect… I did not intend—”

And then he was pulled gently against Sephiroth’s chest, and he could not stop himself from weeping. Bitter tears for the death of his mother. For the finding and loss of family again so soon after. In a moment Zack’s arms were around him as well, and Cloud wanted to scream at them. Scream for them. For he knew their lives would not be so glorious having harbored a murderous prince under their lord’s nose.

But there was no rage in them there, and even Whinny was silent and still, not biting at their sleeves or hair for snacks as she usually did. When Cloud finally drew away from them, they let him go. Zack’s cheeks were wet, but Sephiroth only watched him, looking drained dry.

“I brought you your father’s sword.” He said after a long moment of silence in the stable. “And what armor I could. For I will not see you fall easy for his amusement, though you know I must fight for him.”

“I know,” Cloud said softly. “And I thank you for that.”

“You cannot intend to go through with it,” Zack said, his voice raw and pleading. “It will ruin you both, if not in death then in heart.”

“There is no choice now, Zack.” Sephiroth said, turning to him as his face hardened, turned to pewter. “For Cloud cannot drop his suit without sacrificing his home and his mother’s honor. And I cannot forsake my lord’s service on pain of death, nor can you.”

“I would sooner die than see this,” Zack whispered. “Oh, I would so much sooner die.”

“Oh, do not say that, Fair Sir,” Cloud said softly, trying to hit that playful note they had indulged in so many nights. “For your lady love would mourn you deeply, and my spirit would never let you rest for having died on my behalf.”

“Am I just to watch then?” Zack whispered. “Both my brothers die here, one in body and one in soul?”

“Patience,” Sephiroth said softly, his voice low. “For things may yet find their place. We must away, Your Highness. Or perhaps Your Majesty, for you are king now, and not prince.”

“Sir Sephiroth, do not taunt me,” Cloud said softly. “I would be Sunbeam to you a night longer.”

“And every night onwards an you will.” Sephiroth whispered in reply. “Until tomorrow, brave Sunbeam. Do not hold back.”

Sephiroth turned away, lifting his helmet as he left and settling it and his mask over his face before he left the building. Zack lingered behind, pulling Cloud into one more desperate hug.

“I beg you run,” Zack whispered. “For his heart has pined for you many days now already, and I would not see him break for destroying you.”

“You speak as if I will not win.” Cloud said softly, trying to be glib. It only rose a sorrowful moan from Zack in his arms.

“Fight hard then, if you will not run.” Zack whispered. “As hard as you can and harder. Perhaps if he must to save himself, he will not mourn so terribly. But know that I will, little Sunbeam. Know that I will mourn always, and he as well, if you die tomorrow.”

“I know.” Cloud whispered. “I would not idly throw my life away. But if I stand by and do nothing, if I run, then he will continue. I swore I my home would be the last he shattered.”

Zack watched him in silent misery a long while, then pressed a long, soft kiss to his forehead.

“Luck, brother.” He whispered to Cloud. “And know that in my heart, I stand at your side.”

And then Cloud was left alone in a stable, with his father’s sword, and armor carefully chosen to match his blue and grey clothes.

He sat with them there, in the stable with the horses of his friends, and did not sleep through the long night.

* * *

Cloud was at the arena well before sunrise. Despite the early hour, there was a crowd already gathering. The news of a duel had spread, and there were many in attendance. There was a young woman waiting for Cloud, and she showed him below the seated audience.

“Sir Sephiroth bade me help you into your armor,” She said, her voice full of a quiet curiosity.

Cloud only nodded, and pliantly let her help him tie the platemail into place, as Sephiroth had done for him when they trained together, in the absence of a squire or page to attend them.

His hand was not weak on the sword when he lifted it this time. His palms sweated, but his armor did not care for the heat of his skin, and he had learned how to grip hard through joints weak with anxiety. He could see the dust of the arena, dark with the early hour and with the beginnings of what would be a dampening rain.

So I shall die in the mud after all, Cloud thought, and nearly laughed.

When the herald appeared to cry out the challenge in official verbiage, Cloud was surprised to hear his suit properly stated. He had thought Shinra would have made him out to be a villain.

He wondered if it was because the man thought it would be a more valuable lesson for a virtuous prince to be snuffed out by his finest knight than for a lowly rabblerouser to die on the end of a gleaming blade.

“Luck, highness.” The young woman said, bowing to him.

Cloud nodded to her, his helm under his arm as Zack would carry it as he walked out into the roar of the early morning crowd. He looked up once to Shinra. Traitor, usurper, coward, he sat in his box, watching with an eager expression. Zack stood behind him, expression utterly empty.

Sephiroth walked out from the other side, and Cloud tore his hateful gaze off of Shinra to fix on his opponent. He found himself suddenly glad for the passive, empty mask on Sephiroth’s face, though even that had become a sight as familiar as a friend.

“Will the challenger yield?” The herald offered.

Cloud lifted his helm, sliding it over his head, gazing through the eyeslit at Sephiroth.

“I will not yield.” He called out, his back straight, his shoulders back. “Lord Shinra killed my mother the queen and stole my homeland. And he shall pay recompense.”

Scattered yells of approval in the audience. Of dissent. He paid them no mind. He was a prince. He was thoroughly used to the yelling of crowds.

“Will the challenged yield the point?” The herald called.

“I shall not, and demand the death of this upstart in repayment for his slander.”

Lord Shinra sounded bored, if anything. Had this happened so many times before, Cloud wondered, that it was of so little note?

“Then the duel shall commence. Who fights?”

“I fight for my own words, for all who would fight for me are dead at his hands.” Cloud spat.

“And my knight commander Sephiroth fights in my stead.” Shinra said flippantly. “Let us get it on with, it will be over soon enough.”

Cloud was glad again for their masks. Glad again not to have this as the last time he saw Sephiroth’s face. Glad Sephiroth would not watch him suffer through the faceguard of his helm.

He firmed his resolve. He would not die without drawing blood. Sephiroth and Zack both had requested it of him, and even had they not he would have fought his best in the arena.

“Knight,” The herald addressed. “Prince. At your pleasure.”

He removed himself, and Cloud waited, impatient but still. It was bad form to attack with the herald in the arena and in harm’s way. When he was gone, Cloud placed a hand over his heart and bowed, even and stately to Sephiroth. After a beat, Sephiroth followed suit, with a small inclination of his head as his only indication of familiarity.

Then he was moving in a sharp flash of silver that set Cloud’s instincts instantly on edge in the flashing memory of his last brush with death.

He was not so green as he had been then. His sword met Sephiroth’s in a screech of metal and he swung in counterpoint, up and under his guard. The very move Sephiroth had taught him days ago. It was easily checked, brushed aside. And that was the end of elegance in their fight. It was not like training. Sephiroth was brutal. Relentless. Cloud met his strikes, but it was nearly all he could do to defend. Still, he did not relent. Did not allow himself to retreat into the wall, circling, guarding, waiting.

His blade flashed forward when Sephiroth fell into too easy a pattern of chasing him. Sephiroth’s blade impacted his thigh, jostled him through the armor, but Cloud’s scored deep across the pewter facemask. The crowd howled. Sephiroth kicked him away.

Cloud scrambled back to his feet in time to avoid the sword that would have skewered him. Parried and parried again, keeping just enough distance to be worth something. His head was swimming, his breath coming in short gasps as Sephiroth pushed him, faster, harder, harsher. The slam of his sword against Cloud’s numbing his fingers. Drawing it out, Cloud realized in sick sorrow. Unable to finish it as his master wished.

Cloud had to force his hand.

He called on all he had. Every inch of force, and slammed Sephiroth’s sword down, stepping heavy on it as he pursued, aiming to incapacitate. To disarm. Sephiroth sucked in a breath, caught unguarded. Cloud’s blade caught the belly of his armor and Cloud pierced through, scoring blood and a shout of pain before the man had pulled away in a short, jerking motion.

“Fight me!” Cloud roared at him, agonized by the sight of his dark blood in the sand.

Sephiroth closed the distance, vicious and swift all at once. Cloud could only struggle to keep his blade from connecting. And even that did not last long. Sephiroth’s blade caught the side of his helm and sent it flying in a twisting yank of his sword, scraping the rough metal of its edge across Cloud’s brow, sending blood down the side of his face.

Cloud stumbled with the strike, breathless, aching. He knew it was over. He’d taken too long to recover, he…

Sephiroth closed the distance, his blade hovering a breath from Cloud’s neck. And Cloud flinched at his hesitation. Flinched again as the weight of Sephiroth’s scored hits sank in. As his knees gave out, leaving him sinking before the man, the sword knicking his throat before Sephiroth realized he was falling. And then the sword pulled away, the knight withdrawing.

“Don’t,” Cloud whispered in warning. “Sephiroth.”

“I,” Sephiroth whispered behind his scarred mask.

“Sephiroth,” called a warning voice from the stands. “End him and his baseless claims with his life.”

Sephiroth hesitated. Wavered. Then his hand lifted, pulling free his helm, and Cloud closed his eyes against the sight of him, feeling tears prick at his dry, exhausted eyes.

“My lord I beg you his mercy.” Sephiroth said, his voice rough, only loud enough to carry. The crowd was gasping. Whispering. They haven’t seen him before, Cloud thought blearily. He looked down at his shaking hand, wondering at the red on his gauntlet. Had he been hurt? He couldn’t tell.

“I deny it.” Lord Shinra called. “End this embarrassment!”

Sephiroth stared a moment. Cloud could only see his feet, but he watched them stay turned towards his lord. And he watched when his sword hit the ground at his feet.

“I renounce your service.” Sephiroth declared, his voice low. “I will not sully my blade with the blood of a crimeless king.”

The shock rippled through the crowd. It rippled through Cloud too, like cold terror.

“Shoot him,” Shinra was instructing his archer.

“Wait,” Zack said, sounding at a loss.

“I’ve no use for traitors.” Lord Shinra said. “Witch’s son, bastard, I saved you by bringing you to my service, your life is mine to end! I bade you shoot him!”

The archer drew. Sephiroth smiled, faint and exhausted, not up at his lord, but down at Cloud.

“I’m sorry,” He said softly. “I couldn’t.”

Cloud struggled to stand. To guard him. To take the arrow and his death first. A terrible sound froze them both. Startled the archer into shooting wide. Sephiroth only grunted as the arrow pierced the armor at his shoulder rather than entering his eye.

And every eye in the arena turned towards Zack, behind Shinra’s chair, blade piercing through the back, through Shinra’s chest, and out into the air. His expression was hard, furious, miserable. He lifted his chin as the other knights and guards turned to him, as the audience watched their charismatic hero straighten over the twitching corpse of his lord.

Zack walked slowly to the edge of the platform, then bowed, low and deep, sliding to one knee as he faced the ring.

“All hail the o'erthrown King,” He said, his voice soft and shaking. “For his plea is truth. T’was I who cut his mother down, and t’will be I who dies for that murder if any.”

There was silence. Silence where there should have been outrage. Not well loved, Cloud realized, as no one approached Shinra’s body. As no one approached Zack. Only wealthy. Only feared.

“My life is yours, highness,” Zack said softly. “If you will it. I wielded the blade that stole your life from you.”

Cloud took a slow breath and forced himself up. Blinked tears from his eyes at the memory of a green sun. Of a scared cheek he should have recognized. Of a pained laugh over his mother’s body. He forced himself into the Prince. Straightened past the agony. Past the sorrow. Past the pain.

“The hand that bade you kill her lies dead by your same blade.” He said, eyes on Zack, sweet Zack, who had saved his life as quickly as he had ended his mother’s and so much more willingly. His words came clear and powerful. He did not doubt them. “You exonerate yourself. If you will still give me your life, then I will take it with you by my side in service of a better Lord.”

Zack’s face trembled in a smile, and then crumbled in sorrow, tears streaking down his cheeks as he gazed out at Cloud. At Sephiroth, moving to support him even wounded as he was.

“Highness,” He whispered. “All the days I have.”

“Odd,” Sephiroth whispered. “Not how I expected in the slightest.”

When he fell, Cloud caught him as best he could, both of them wounded, exhausted. Cloud heard Zack stand. Heard his orders ring. Heard, to his shock, them followed.

“Doctors for both of them,” Zack was calling. “The duel is over, and I gladly sacrifice what honor I had to make it so. Long live Cloud, King of Nibelheim!”

“Long live the king!” The crowd chorused, and Cloud let out a breath of relief. If there was to be a mob, at least it would be on their side.

* * *

Cloud woke much later, in a nest of familiar furs, with a cool cloth brushing over the slice on his temple where Sephiroth had torn his helm free.

“Take it easy, highness,” A familiar voice said when he roused. “You’ve had a rough day of it.”

“Where’s Sephiroth?” Cloud whispered, his eyes only barely cracking open to look up at Zack.

“Here,” Sephiroth’s voice answered from nearby, heavy with exhaustion.

“Against all advisement that he ought to be lying down.” Zack said, aiming for a joking edge. It fell flat.

“You have terribly dramatic timing,” Cloud said wearily. “Did you know that, Fair Sir?”

“Oh king of sunbeams,” He whispered. “Would I had killed him three assassinations ago, before I ever touched your life.”

“It could as easily have been me,” Sephiroth offered. “He had us kill for him often, when and where it pleased. We are not good men, Cloud.”

“Not like you,” Zack whispered with a wet chuckle.

“Yet you sit there dabbing my forehead with all the tenderness of a nursemaid,” Cloud whispered, forcing his eyes open to look up at the knights above him.

“Do not forgive me,” Zack whispered in a plea.

“I’m afraid I must,” Cloud said wearily. “For it was always my mother’s way, to love those who were kind to me. And therefore, she would love you, and therefore I must forgive you, you see.”

“Ah, the king rambles,” Sephiroth murmured, fond and soft. “And yet his words do track, dear Zachary.”

“Will you come with me to take back my home?” Cloud asked wearily.

“That and more.” Sephiroth said softly. “But look, our Fair Sir is overwhelmed. Do take a moment, good knight. Breathe the night air. Fetch yourself ale till your stomach settles or rebels properly, one.”

“I shall bring wine for both of your roseless cheeks as well,” Zack choked, a laugh and a sob mingling in his throat. “It suits you both so poorly to be unwell.”

He left them quickly, escaping before he could shatter, and Cloud did not blame him. He was glad, that it hurt him in a way. It meant that it mattered.

“My king,” Sephiroth murmured.

“I would be your Sunbeam a night longer,” Cloud whispered. “You could have been killed.”

“Better killed than kill you,” Sephiroth murmured. “You fought well. You’d have the makings of a great knight, were it not for all the makings of a great king that would spoil for your knighthood.”

“Zack mentioned,” Cloud said after a moment to catch his breath, to catch his mind. “That you were pining for me.”

“A strong word, I must say.”

“And yet apt?”

“So hopeful sunbeam? Then how could I correct you. I have felt some stirrings of pining. Not so much as to be a pine tree, you understand, but enough to have some sap in me.”

“Will you joke rather than kissing me?”

“I would kiss you could I bend, but you slit my belly open, and I fear to make myself ill and drown you.”

“Ah, sap indeed. Then I shall have to sit.”

“I sliced you up neatly as well, I would not advise it.”

“Your advice is noted and ignored.”

“Ah, already the power goes to your head.”

Cloud sat up anyway. His head spun, but Sephiroth’s right hand steadied him, his left bound over his chest, bandaged where the arrow pierced him.

“I would not have your service,” Cloud whispered to him. “But I would have you by my side.”

“Tonight?” Sephiroth asked, a small smile on his lips.

“And many after, if you will.”

“I am glad, for I doubt my ability in the wake of our early hour.”

“You doubt too much, I am certain you would perform. And yet I find myself loathe to do much at all for the moment, and would sooner sleep by you than any other pursuit, for now.”

“Shall I read to you again, for it surely put you to sleep before.”

“I would loathe for you to stand and fetch your book. Know you any songs?”

“I do, my sunbeam, and would gladly sing.”

So Cloud let Sephiroth help him back onto the furs, and slept to the sound of his low voice singing, steady and quiet, as his hand wrapped snugly into Cloud’s, palm to palm.

_“Somer is y-comen in,  
Loudë sing, cuckóu  
Growëth sed and blowëth med  
And springth the wodë nou  
  
Sing cuckóu  
  
Ewë bletëth after lamb,  
Lowth after cálve cóu;  
Bullok stertëth, bukkë vertëth,  
Merye sing, cuckóu  
  
Cuckóu, cuckóu,  
Wél singést thou, cuckóu,  
Ne swik thou never nou”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Robot


	3. Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Killer robot Sephiroth is bound for the scrapheap after the heat of an explosion destroys nearly half his body. In fact, he's willing to save everyone some time and drag himself there.
> 
> Mechanic and part-time programmer Cloud is just hoping to find some cool parts to mod his motorcycle with in the junkyard. If he'd known he was gunna find a dying robot, he'd have brought his _big_ wheelbarrow.

[ _< For more of Tomo's art, click here!>_ ](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

It had taken time for Sephiroth to work himself free from the slagheap that had been his left arm and leg. He had torn the artificial skin from his cheek. It had melted with them in the heat of the explosion. Every internal alarm he had was blaring, the sounds waning in and out of his hearing, inaudible to anyone but him, just a false signal to alert him to the danger. **  
**

As if he, dragging himself from the steaming rock, the molten metal, the cracked and burning trees of the explosion, was unaware that there was cause for alarm.

The rest of Shinra’s First Division was melded to the ground, cracking, garbled static serving as their last words. He should have been just as thoroughly destroyed. Nothing left to be stolen by enemy hands. He was a treasure chest of Shinra secrets, and encrypted though he might have been, there was only so much a broken robot could do against a thoroughly determined hacker.

He tried to pull up his coms, but they were down. Tried to get a satellite location and received only fragmented images, his internal compass whirling off the charts, disrupted by the radioactive mako energy soaking into the ground from the melted machines. He dragged himself away with his one remaining arm, hearing his gears wrench and whine at the strain. A sound escaped him, a raking, scraping sound.

It might have been a laugh.

* * *

Cloud Strife had found some marvelous things at the junkyard. He had found the pieces he’d used to make his dog’s mechanical leg, he had found an intact almost-working record player, he had found robot limbs and car parts and a thousand little treasures.

He’d never heard the rough, wheezing breaths of a motor’s fan on its last legs before. Not accompanied by the sound of a speech synthesizer, warping through a bedraggled almost-human sound.

His first instinct, ingrained from too many years of movies, was to run. That, his brain said, was NOT a safe sound. And Cloud may have taken the risk of coming to the junkyard, but he didn’t plan on getting _caught_ in the junkyard. Much less murdered there.

“What would mom say reading the headline,” Cloud muttered to himself, edging away from the noise.

The wheezing sound resolved into something rougher. A desperate whir. The voice synthesizer spiked and crackled with it. Like a scream.

“–ease,” Cloud almost heard, the voice so distorted he almost thought it a monster, an animal, something inhuman and awful. But it came again. ‘Please…”

“I’m going to get eaten.” Cloud muttered to himself, pulling his crowbar out of its leather belt loop and hefting it like a war hammer.

He didn’t get eaten. He DID really wish that he’d thought to bring his wheelbarrow.

* * *

The first thing Sephiroth saw when he woke up was the skull of some large animal, with twisting plants crawling out of its eye sockets. That, he thought, was an odd thing to find in a junkyard.

His second thought was that he’d hoped he would be incinerated before he had to handle the alarms blaring in his head any longer. The shudders that racked his body. The heat. The…

His programming firmly reminded him that he did not feel pain. And Sephiroth blinked, heavily, his eyelid joints groaning a little. He had gotten filthy and wet dragging himself to the junkyard. He would rust. It was only a matter of time. He stared at the skull. At its plants where eyes should be.

His internal fan wheezed to life as his processes came online, and Sephiroth flinched, ready for the alarms.

Only half of his body flinched. And the alarms didn’t start blaring in his head. Maybe it broke, he thought with a desperate hope. Maybe it finally broke.

“Are you awake?” A voice asked, sounding more bewildered than anything. “Good grief, precocious much. I’m glad I hurried up and got your right side numbed. That would have been a hell of a thing to wake up to.”

Sephiroth stiffened, his remaining joints contracting as he tried to coil himself for battle. For a fight. He only managed to tangle himself on the soft surface he lay on, thrashing ineffectively, even if only once.

“Woah, sorry,” Said the voice, and Sephiroth stared at the grubby human in front of him, his hands lifted, oil-stained and steady. There was a smear of grease on his cheek.

“It’s alright,” He said, as if trying to soothe Sephiroth. “I’m not going to hurt you. Lie back, alright? You’re already overheating again. I’ll get a couple ice packs to help your fan out till I can figure out what’s got it working so hard, okay?”

Sephiroth opened his mouth to demand to be returned to Shinra. To demand the man’s affiliation and name. To speak at all. But his voice shattered into static before he could. Of course, he thought wearily. Miss enough check-ins and your voice shuts down.

“Yeah, I hear ya,” the man said with a smile anyway. “Promise I’ll get that looked at too. I’m not as quick with the computer parts as I am with the mechanics, but I think I might still be able to help you out.”

He stood, walking away from Sephiroth and towards a fridge standing in the corner of the room. Sephiroth looked around, levering himself up onto his one functional arm. There was no weight on his right side to counterbalance him. He did not look down at what remained of his right side.

He looked instead at the place he found himself. It did not LOOK like a Wutaian base. Or a rebel’s camp, for that matter. It was an enormous garage, one of the ones built before the sleek and modern factories he’d been produced inside. There were wide windows on each of the supporting walls. From the light coming from behind him, he assumed the presence of another at the back.

At the front of the building, the garage door had been left open, facing out into a small torn-up parking lot and then a great deal of nothing. Rolling scrubland where forest slowly gave way to desert. Despite the huge windows, the open spaces, he could see nothing that identified his location.

He tried to activate his location services, and heard a buzz of denial in his head.

The inside walls were painted green. His frustratingly functional color identification services decided it to be ‘moss’ with white accents around the windows, and in shelves around the walls. There were plants everywhere. Bushes in large pots on the ground, succulents and vines all across the shelves and walls.

Between them were bones. And worse (better? Maybe the same?) there were pieces of robots hanging on the walls.

It was not a macabre display, in particular. Sephiroth recognized a T1 leg hanging on a pair of hooks, laterally. A couple of what looked like carefully restored reactor cores sitting on a shelf with the steel wool brush that must have removed the scale and rust from them. There were wires neatly cataloged, and a whole wall dedicated to a wide array of tools, each one outlined in white. A placeholder for when its tool was returned.

It would have worked better if the tools had not all be scattered across the workspace rather than hung on the wall. The sight made Sephiroth twitch again.

“You should lie back down before you fall,” The stranger warned, wandering back over to him with four ice packs in a towel under one arm and a mug of something in the other. “I’d help you still, but my back’s pretty sore from getting you here, so it probably wouldn’t be elegant. Plus, the icepacks’ll work better if you’re lying down.”

He hooked a wheeled work table with one knee, and Sephiroth recognized the sound of smooth concrete underneath its wheels. He was in a workshop. But he glanced to his right and saw a sofa, a table, a small kitchenette. A home as well?

“I can tell you’re pretty confused,” the man said. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. We can figure out how to talk about it soon, okay?”

He set the mug down on the table he’d wheeled over, tugging the towel out from beneath the ice packs and dropping them on the table as well. Then he turned towards Sephiroth and waited.

Sephiroth stared at him. Tried to glare, but it was difficult. His facial motor controls were malfunctioning, he supposed. He only stared, his expression set in a feeling that was not appropriate to how he _should_ have responded. But it was appropriate to his honest reaction. He was….

Very confused.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The man said, shifting uneasily as he stood by Sephiroth’s side, waiting. “The towel’s to keep the ice packs from getting you too wet. You know? When they start warming up and all that condensation? Your waterproofing got pretty fucked up by whatever happened to you, and it seems like you’ve already taken a little damage from it, I don’t want to make it worse.”

Sephiroth only stared as he rambled. A slow thought occurred to him as he looked over to the work bench. Mechanic. If he could repair him… If he didn’t know who he was, or what he was worth…

Sephiroth lay back very slowly. Or he intended to. He misjudged his new balance and fell back with a soft rush of static and a whining complaining from his internal fan.

“Thanks,” The man said with a smile, instantly draping the towel over Sephiroth’s chest, hiding not only the bare expanse of his skin on the left, but the melted skin over metal of his right. Sephiroth tried to keep his eyes turned away from that side as much as possible.

“I’m Cloud, by the way,” The man said. “Sorry to introduce myself while you can’t, but I figure that’s better than you not know who the heck I am. I run this little shop. Mainly I take care of motorcycles for a couple of clients, but I do some freelance work with robots. So… I can’t say you’re in the best of hands. But I at least won’t break you.”

The ice packs he settled over Sephiroth’s chest and sides, nestled snug into the towel, were an instant relief. Sephiroth felt his involuntary shaking ease just a touch at their cooling effect. The fever-pitch of his cooling systems finally started to subside.

The man called Cloud smiled at the sound of it, looking pleased. And that was not how Sephiroth usually saw the ones repairing him look. They were annoyed, picking him apart until they found the flaw. And at the moment, he was all-over flaws.

“Take all the time you need getting your systems in order, okay?” He said. “I’ve gotta do some research on how to help you out with your voice box. If you get fine motor control back before then, just tap on the bed and I’ll bring you some paper. I don’t mind writing if that’s easier. One of my best friends lost his voice-synth for a full year and a half before we were able to get him another one. We spent a lot of time writing.”

Friend, Sephiroth thought, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Ah. So he was in the care of one of those people who called robots ‘friends.’ He probably didn’t have to worry about him being Wutaian then, but he definitely wasn’t Shinra. Probably wasn’t friendly to them either. But maybe…

Maybe that was just as well. His hair was burnt away on his right, and his arm and leg… He was of no use like this. He’d be lucky to be kept around for repairs. It would probably be cheaper to build a new body, backup his data, give him a few more upgrades. And every upgrade he’d ever gotten had only made everything worse.

“Anyhow,” Cloud said. “I’ll be nearby. Shut down whenever you want if you need to reset, okay? No one ever comes out this way, so whoever hurt you… They won’t find you here.”

Sephiroth stared at him. He shouldn’t have felt the loosening of some tension in his chest at that. He shouldn’t have heard his servos wind down in relief. It was meaningless. Shinra would find him, and he would find out what good he was. But for now…

For now the man went away, taking his mug. Dropped into a chair by the workbench Sephiroth had noticed, shifting a couple papers off his projector. Sephiroth watched him blearily as he flicked the hologram on. It was an old model, rough graphics and one of the earlier voices.

“Good afternoon,” The projector greeted. “What can I assist you with today?”

“Good afternoon,” Cloud greeted in response. “Non-verbal mode please. I have a guest.”

Sephiroth tried to focus more tightly on the projection in front of Cloud, but his eyes wouldn’t focus. His internal motors were wheezing softly with effort, even though the ice packs helped. They helped chase some of the awful lingering phantom-heat from his right side as well.

He meant to make a plan. But his overtaxed systems got as far as thinking ‘I need a plan’ before the jumble of thoughts that followed seized up his system and forced a hard reset.

He didn’t wake up until hours later, after rounds of semi-conscious circles in his internal elements. Activate internal diagnostic departments. Internal repair departments damaged. Initiate general damage analysis. Password protected. Activate password recall. Memory systems damaged. Memories locked till further inspection by authorized individual to prevent corruption. Override. Denied. Override. Denied. Reboot. Denied. Denied. Denied.

When he finally got enough of himself online to reboot, he woke with a loud noise sprouting not from his mouth or throat, but from a speaker somewhere deep in his chest.

‘This Shinra Unit is malfunctioning!’ Chirped a woman’s voice. ‘Shinra Units are armed. You may be in danger! Please contact the nearest Shinra representative. Again, this Shinra Unit is malfunctioning!’

Across the room there was a jolt of motion and an explosion of barking. Sephiroth wrenched his eyes open, scowling in disgust down at his chest. Fail-safes. He hadn’t activated the alarm that he was in enemy hands, so his internal alert systems were still reacting as if he was in Midgar.

“It’s okay, Spook, it’s okay!” Cloud was saying, calming the barking dog. Sephiroth stared at the creature, its dark shaggy head and its bare metal leg, skeletal but clearly functional as the dog turned to Cloud and instantly dropped its alarm, wagging its tail gamely at him and bouncing on its feet.

“Hey,” Cloud greeted, looking freshly washed to the extent that he was still damp. He waved at Sephiroth in a little hello. Sephiroth, his hand shaking a bit, lifted it to wave back before he could think better of it, then frowned down at his traitor hand for the motion.

“You may be in danger!” The woman’s voice was full of false concern. Cloud grimaced at the volume. The dog barked again.

“Don’t suppose you can turn that off?” Cloud asked.

Sephiroth had been trying. But it was a fail-safe built to resist HIM, when he tried to overextend his autonomy. There was nothing he could do about it.

“This Shinra unit is malfunctioning!” She said again, and any hopes Sephiroth had of anonymity died with each repetition.

Cloud was frowning, watching Sephiroth. Then he moved to his workshop area. Sephiroth felt himself go stiff. Felt his fan whir into action. It was dark outside. A great deal of time must have passed. But the ice packs around him were still cold enough that he wasn’t overheating yet, even as he struggled frantically to get some control over his body.

He only ended up making it worse, activating the fail-safe locked his hydraulic joint assists, making any motion he attempted twice as taxing and half as quick.

“Here,” Cloud said, and Sephiroth jerked his eyes up as quickly as he could with his motors suddenly slower. He didn’t have time to pull away as Cloud reached down.  
  
Then something was settled over his ears, and the woman’s voice pouring from his chest muffled. Not projecting internally, he realized in relief. Only external sound.  
  
Cloud smiled at him, a pair of noise cancelling headphones settled on his own ears as well. He lifted a clipboard, uncapped a marker with his teeth, and scrawled something.

“Can I try to shut that off?” he wrote.

Sephiroth stared at him. He wasn’t even supposed to interact with non-combatants. Though he supposed he’d already broken that rule by being interacted with…

Cloud was watching him. He made a face Sephiroth didn’t recognize, his lips pulling to one side but not smiling. He pursed his lips a little, appearing to think. Then he turned back to the clipboard, writing longer this time.

“I only patched into you to charge you up so far. I don’t want to hack you without your permission. I won’t look at anything. She’s just really loud. I can tell you don’t like it.”

Sephiroth stared at the last line, his fingers tightening slowly, stiffly, with his hydraulics locked down.

‘Malfunctioning,’ the muffled voice in his chest was reciting. ‘Danger!’

He nodded, slowly. Cloud hesitated, then reached out abruptly. Sephiroth stiffened for danger, a beat behind with his condition. But Cloud only tucked the pen into his stiff fingers and held the pad out for Sephiroth.

Sephiroth stared at him, then focused on the paper. The elastic rubber faux muscles beneath his skin bunched and pulled in effort, and he could feel the joint in his wrist grinding as he tried.

‘Yes’ he wrote, scrawling and inelegant. Then before Cloud could pull away, before he could think better of it, he wrote ‘hydraulics locked’

“Thought you were looking stiff,” Cloud yelled over the sound of the woman in Sephiroth’s chest and the sound of his internal voice reciting its lines. “Gimme five!”

There was not much Sephiroth could do but wait. Internally, he ran through her words with her, staring up at the tin roof of the building. The dog barked again, then poked its shaggy head up, bracing its paws beside Sephiroth. Its ears lifted, and it tilted its head far to the left, then to the right, staring at his chest, then up at his face in turn.

“Spooks,” Cloud was scolding when he returned. “Don’t be rude.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised Sephiroth. Sephiroth only watched him. Watched as Cloud’s fingers slid down to his neck, searching for the latch. He found it just under Sephiroth’s chin, his vulnerable throat. He popped the latch with all the calm competence of a mechanic at a car’s hood, and pulled out a pair of retractable cables from his palm projector. It was significantly nicer than the one he’d been using the night before.

Sephiroth would have asked, if he could speak. If he could do anything. Instead he just dropped back against the soft thing he was lying on and closed his eyes, focusing inward, on where Cloud might be poking.

Password, demanded Sephiroth’s interior. And Sephiroth was surprised to feel a message coming through to him from Cloud’s typing, asking for access. He sent back a negative. Password locked down. He couldn’t remember, though he had heard it a thousand times.

He had the sudden flicker of an emotion, and almost blinked out of his meditation. Cloud had sent him back a ‘don’t worry’ emoji.

No one had done THAT before.

Password lost, Cloud responded. Recovery options, said Sephiroth’s systems. Recognize upgrade, said Cloud’s device, and Sephiroth felt unease coil in his network. Upgrades meant…

Unauthorized, said his system. Advanced, said Cloud’s program in return. No main internal upgrades. Reduces energy cost. Shinra sanctioned. Safe.

Accepted, said his system, starving for better power conservation.

Thank you, said Cloud, and there was no reason or logic in that, but Sephiroth liked it. A long disused program he’d created for himself once clicked to life, an internal abacus of the humans he knew. It slid a counter in Cloud’s direction.

The download started, but Sephiroth was instantly aware that it was not an upgrade. More a chaff grenade, set off in his security systems. The abacus stirred again.

Code Index? Cloud’s access said.

Sephiroth sent back only confusion.

Loud woman. Cloud’s access replied.

Fail-safe; Midgar Proper, Sephiroth replied, feeling Cloud dig through his systems while his ‘update’ granted him access.

This sucks, Cloud’s access said.

Sephiroth sent confusion again. He received a screenshot of his own fail-safes listed out in return. He knew them already. He told Cloud as much.

I’m removing them, Cloud’s access said.

Don’t, Sephiroth replied.

They’ll hurt you, Cloud’s access said.

Robots Need Fail-safes, Sephiroth replied. Only the speaker.

Fine, Cloud replied. But I’m lifting the hydraulic restriction too.

He felt Cloud worm his way in. Kept an eye on him as he lied to code. As he shut down emergency protocols with slap-dash patches and a fair amount of pure garbage. His approach seemed to be entirely confusion-based, diverting and re-diverting the code till it went in circles, chasing its own tail. Sephiroth’s engineer would have a conniption. On a whim, he told Cloud so.

Serves him right, Cloud replied. Nearly done.

Sephiroth felt it when the speaker clicked of. The relief that swam through him was instant. The hydraulic systems reactivated shortly after.

Upgrade complete? Sephiroth’s security system was asking, concerned.

Password reset required, Sephiroth told it internally.

Human required for password reset, the system insisted, confused.

Human present, Cloud’s access said. Password reset confirmed. New password = SameAsWifi

Password requirements not met.

Password = Sam3asWifi!

Password requirements not met.

Password =

Three numbers, two capitals, two symbols, Sephiroth instructed.

Password = 0!Th4nkU!1

Password accepted.

“There,” Cloud said aloud, his voice muffled by the headphones. “Let me unhook you.”

His hand was gentle on Sephiroth’s neck as he unplugged his input. Sephiroth’s eyes flicked open, once again responsive.

Cloud was already pulling something out of his pants pocket, scribbling something down.

“I saw you were locked out of your password memory server. So here.”

He patted the yellow sticky note onto Sephiroth’s chest with a smile. Sephiroth glanced down at the upside down writing.

0!Th4nkU!1

Sephiroth’s voice box was still fried, but he opened his mouth nonetheless. He mouthed the word scrawled on his sticky note back to Cloud.

“You’re welcome,” Cloud said warmly. “I need to get some sleep, I think, but maybe tomorrow we can see about getting you fixed up a little? You can’t be comfortable like that.”

Sephiroth did not say anything. But he didn’t say no either. He finally lowered his eyes to his right side, and closed his eyes quickly as he observed the damage.

“Your main joints are still active,” Cloud offered after a moment. “Shoulder and hip, at least. I can patch a new limb in for you. If you’ll let me.”

The abacus shifted again, and Sephiroth couldn’t help but nod. His one remaining hand still creaked when it moved, its synthetic skin having been torn away by his log drag through across the ground. He reached for the marker, and Cloud handed it to him. This time when he scrawled it was a little less dismal.

“Unit Designation: Sephiroth.”

“Sephiroth,” Cloud said. “Nice to meet you officially.”

* * *

Sephiroth realized exactly how strange his host was that night, when the man went to rest on the sofa. Because it was at that moment that Sephiroth realized he was lying on a human’s bed. While he slept on the sofa. It was unheard of, it was frankly ludicrous, and yet…

The abacus moved. How had that system gotten activated again? He really must have been fried, he hadn’t used that in years.

He tried to sit up, to trade out, but a jolt of tension so tight he was afraid it would rip him in half tore through him, and rather than setting Cloud more at ease it seemed to distress him greatly.

“Lie down!” Cloud was saying when Sephiroth’s hearing stopped malfunctioning. “Lie down, you’re still hurt. All I’ve been able to do so far is surface patches.”

Sephiroth tried to speak, and only vocalized a burst of static.

Cloud frowned, putting his hand on Sephiroth’s shoulders, ruined and whole, to gently push him back down.

“Is there any danger?” Cloud asked.

Sephiroth shook his head.

“Then it’s not worth hurting yourself over,” Cloud said. “Rest. Tomorrow I’ll try to get you a voice. Even if it’s just patching you into my phone so you can text me.”

That would be useful for researching him, Sephiroth thought, and was instantly angry with himself for thinking it. The mechanic had been…

Kind.

“Get some rest,” Cloud said softly. “I will too. It’s one of the big things people and machines have in common. Turning off then back on again is almost always a good idea.”

He yawned through chuckling at his own turn of phrase.

And so Sephiroth spent the night lying on a person’s bed, looking up at the ceiling and willing his systems not to recover, for fear that his location would lead his owners to him.

* * *

“Okay! Say ah?” Cloud urged.

“Why?” Sephiroth asked, his voice staticked and rough, but audible again. It was not the clear and lovely voice Shinra had programmed for him to inspire fear and awe. It was barely a whisper through the static.

“It’s a thing,” Cloud said with a shrug. “Nice to hear you! Sorry it’s a pretty inelegant patch.”

“Unnecessary.” Sephiroth said.

“The patch?” Cloud asked, lifting an eyebrow at him.

“Apology.” Sephiroth corrected. “I will repay your effort.”

“I’m not doing this to get paid, buddy,” Cloud said. “Well, we’ll give that vocal reboot a check for today! That’s thing one off the list! How’s your hand behaving?”

“Badly.” Sephiroth replied, though he lifted his twitching fingers to prod at his throat.

“Okay, motor controls are on the list. Though I’m worried your hand might not be at its best. I’ll need to reskin it at least, and I mean… I don’t have anything in your shade.”

Sephiroth only watched him, listening. Cloud stared back long enough that Sephiroth began to think he required an answer, and tried to figure out what the question had been.

“Which is the thing about the limbs I could hook you up with too,” Cloud said softly. “They wouldn’t be an exact fit, or as pretty as your initials probably were.”

“Expensive.” Sephiroth noted.

“More time than anything,” Cloud said with a shrug. “I only keep the parts around in case someone needs them.”

“Owners will repay you.” Sephiroth offered.

Cloud paused, his expression hardening at once.

“I don’t want their money.” Cloud whispered, low and dark. “If I didn’t already hate Shinra enough, seeing the shit they’d programmed into you would have done it.”

Resistance, screamed his internal warning system. Target, restrain.

No, Sephiroth replied, wrangling the system. He lifted his arm, checking the sticky note on his arm for his new password.

“Please refrain from rhetoric.” He requested.

“Good grief. Are you programmed to take down people who disagree with Shinra?”

“Sliding scale.” Sephiroth said.

“Where would I fall on it?”

Sephiroth considered, then lifted his hand at a forty five degree angle. He smiled when it made Cloud laugh. The torn skin on his face twisted with his smile, but he didn’t mind so much now that the tension had lessened, day by day, with Cloud’s careful tending.

“What do you want?” He asked, finding it easier to speak as he practiced again. It had been a long time since he’d bothered, even before he’d been unable. “Not money.”

“Not money,” Cloud agreed. “I’m perfectly happy with things as they are.”

“Would be lots” Sephiroth informed him.

“They programmed you to torture yourself if you disobey an order,” Cloud said grimly. “Right there in the fail-safe list beside ‘annoying woman rambles on about you being a dangerous weapon.'"

“I am a dangerous weapon.” Sephiroth recited, prodding at his throat still, interested in the cracking quality of his damaged voice.

“You don’t deserve that.” Cloud insisted. “Machine-learning re-calibration my ass.”

“Reinforcement of behavior.” Sephiroth instructed him.

“Cruelty.” Cloud shot back.

Sephiroth watched him, surprised at his instinct to push back. Arguing with a person was not…

“You wanted to show me a leg.” He reminded.

“I mean,” said Cloud, gesturing to the leg hanging on his wall. “You’ve seen it.”

Sephiroth’s system didn’t want to accept the leg. Cloud stubbornly stayed hooked into Sephiroth’s half-melted hip joint, meeting logic with logic, sending useless security off in spirals. And yet Sephiroth’s body stubbornly refused.

Each time it rejected, the spark of it jolted through Sephiroth like a correction. He grit his polished teeth and tried to suppress the sound of his tight-jointed fingers clenching. The way his fan kicked in when it got too much to handle.

Despite his efforts Cloud looked up at him in surprise.

“Hells,” Cloud whispered. “Is this hurting you?”

“Robot.” Sephiroth reminded him.

“I’m hurting you.” Cloud whispered, going pale at once. He reached out to unplug instantly, and Sephiroth caught his hand, halting the motion before he could.

“Again.” He said, watching Cloud’s pale, drawn face. “Please.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I want to get up.”

Cloud hesitated, then slowly sat back in his seat at the foot of Sephiroth’s bed. Sephiroth didn’t like looking at his melted body, but Cloud hadn’t once shied away from it.

“Alright,” Cloud whispered. “Ten more minutes of trying, then we’ll take a break if I haven’t gotten it. I don’t want to hurt you at all, but I’ll take not outright damaging you if that’s the best I can do.”

Cloud talked the leg into connecting eight minutes later, and the breath of relief he sighed made Sephiroth feel something he didn’t quite understand. It was only deepened when Cloud launched forward to wrap him in his arms tightly, protectively.

Slowly, uncertainty, Sephiroth lifted his hand to rest on Cloud’s back, and felt some of the tension in his body ease.

He moved slowly at first. The loaner leg was almost a full inch shorter than his own, and it left him with a distinct limp. It looked a little less silly wearing a pair of Cloud’s so-called ‘sweatpants’. There was not, to Sephiroth’s relief, any apparent sweat on them currently.

Cloud picked up his tools while Sephiroth explored his vastly reduced limits with the new leg, taking his time wandering around the garage he’d only seen from his bed. The dog trotted over to him, running in a circle. Its replacement rear leg winked happily in the light.

“Look Spooks,” Cloud chuckled. “Now our friend’s got a new leg, like you.”

And though Sephiroth once would have rolled his eyes at calling a robot friend, now he found himself quietly touched.

“So the robot pieces,” he said slowly. “Are just for rescuing scrap like me?”

“I can’t tell if you say things like that to rile me up, or if you really think that about yourself,” Cloud complained. “Neither you nor any other robot who’s ended up here is scrap.”

“So you do this often? Harbor dangerous missing Shinra equipment?”

“First scrap now equipment? You’re killing me, Seph. And no, only a couple of times, and never Shinra’s before. Just robots who need help.”

“You help them leave their owners?”

“Most of them were already left. But yeah, absolutely. I’m kind of the opinion that robots shouldn’t be owned.”

Sephiroth glanced at him, but quickly turned his gaze to the skull on the shelf in front of him. It didn’t have any plants in it, but grinned up at him nonetheless.

“Why the bones, then?” He asked after a moment. “These cannot be used as replacement parts, you realize.”

“Haha,” Cloud said sarcastically, though he was grinning. “Nah. The bones are just cool.”

* * *

Piece by piece, Cloud repaired him. The next thing he broached was stretching some new skin for Sephiroth, riveting it gently to his face, his new leg, his torso.

Sephiroth asked after an arm, and learned that Cloud was afraid, after hurting him before. And the abacus inside him shuddered with the strain of his affection for the man.

They took breaks every few minutes when Cloud tried to connect his arm, and Sephiroth rededicated his efforts to hacking into himself to regain some control.

It was not a pleasant day, but at the end of it, he had an arm, and one hand that was not stiff and failing.

It was that night he warned Cloud for the first time.

“I was not lying,” He whispered. “I was valuable to Shinra. They will come to reclaim me.”

Cloud had only smiled at him, warm and sweet.

“That’s the first time you’ve let it sound like you don’t want them to,” Cloud said, and somehow, though his words should have been accusation, he made it sound like praise.

With an arm suited for work again, Sephiroth set to it by that afternoon. He started with Cloud’s workbench, finally hanging all the tools in their white-painted places, physically solving the puzzle he had put together in his head over long hours staring at the mess.

“You don’t have to,” Cloud had offered, sheepishly.

“I would like to.” Sephiroth said. “And to assist in other ways. If you will let me.”

“Ah,” Cloud said slowly. “Well… If you really want to you could help me with the plants?”

And so Sephiroth learned how to tend to plants, and learned yet more from and about Cloud. Including that he’d learned to garden from another robot.

“She had a way with them,” Cloud said fondly, softly. “They made her so happy.”

“Did you love her?” Sephiroth asked.

“No.” Cloud said softly, still with that sad smile.

Sephiroth only nodded.

“I’m glad.” He said in his cracking voice. “It would have been a mistake.”

Cloud went utterly still, an expression crossing his face that was not the pleasant and easy smile Sephiroth had come to appreciate.

“How so?” He asked, his voice not angry, but strangely dangerous.

“You are human,” Sephiroth said, testing the water of the philodendron in the window. “You would not date your projector.”

“My projector wouldn’t keep me company,” Cloud said, his voice stiff. “Or talk to me for the fun of it, or help me just because it wanted.”

Sephiroth glanced at him, lifting an eyebrow.

“It is made to help you. It would do what you want.”

He didn’t understand why Cloud looked so hurt. Didn’t understand the look of hurt that flickered across his face.

He did understand when Cloud told him a little while later that he needed to go for a while, and he watched him pull on his helmet and tear out of the garage on his motorcycle, as if he was escaping something.

Sephiroth glanced down at the dog Spooks, who wandered over to prop her chin on his leg. Sephiroth stroked her with his newly attached fingers, and he thought for a very long time.

Hypothesis: Humans are Irrational. Cloud reacted Irrationally.

Hypothesis denied.

Hypothesis: Unknown transgression was committed.

Hypothesis accepted.

Initiating self-reprimand system.

Self-reprimand system offline.

Sephiroth frowned digging deeper. He caught the trailing end of the glitching self-reprimand system, expecting to find that Cloud had betrayed him, had altered his code when Sephiroth had requested he not do more than he’d said.

Instead he found a question, waiting for his answer. Like a file waiting to be saved, freezing the program till decision. It was Cloud’s work, but it was not law. It was only a question.  
  
Initiate Reprimand:  
Yes/No  
  
And a 'hint' attached. It read:  
  
You don’t deserve this. Please choose no?

Sephiroth considered the prompt for a long time. Eventually he backed out of the program without answering. Maybe when he found out what he had done wrong, then he would know better. So he thought about it, long and hard.

When Cloud returned, he didn’t bring it up. He only asked Sephiroth if he wanted to start up a garden out front with him in a couple of days.

Sephiroth did.

* * *

It was a week later that Cloud surprised him, handing him a package, hastily wrapped in newspaper. Sephiroth glanced at his grin, then carefully unwrapped it.

It was a hand. And Sephiroth almost laughed at the gift.

“You don’t have to,” Cloud cautioned. “But I know your other one isn’t working too well. And I think I’ve gotten better at not hurting you.”

“Better than you know.” Sephiroth said softly, thinking of a question unanswered.

They settled in the window seat for Cloud to work. It was awkward, detaching the initial hand, getting the replacement into place. But Sephiroth found it easy to bear, chuckling at Cloud’s mild jokes and easy storytelling. He asked about the robot who taught him to garden, and heard more about her. Watched Cloud’s warm smile.

He thought about that day, that short fight. He thought about his words, and Cloud’s reaction. He thought about a abacus weighing heavy in his chest, and the growing things housed in old bones.

“Cloud,” He said slowly, as Cloud fiddled with the mechanics on his new hand. “I would like to apologize.”

“For what?” Cloud asked. Sephiroth jolted when Cloud prodded something, and Cloud murmured an honest apology, rubbing a careful hand over the inside of Sephiroth’s forearm, a soothing and gentle touch. He’d never known his touch sensitivity could be used for something so nice before Cloud.

“Being a hypocrite, I think.” He said after a moment.

“You don’t have to apologize for changing your mind,” Cloud said, eyes focused on his work. “Tell me if this hurts, okay?”

“It wouldn’t have been a mistake.” Sephiroth said. “You loving her.”

Cloud paused, lifting his eyes slowly.

“But I still find myself… glad.” Sephiroth said slowly, searching for every word. “That you did not.”

“Sephiroth,” Cloud said softly.

“I know you do not want to own me,” Sephiroth said before he could lose his nerve. “May I stay with you? Not as a worker or a servant or a robot, but…”

Cloud’s cheeks were bright, dusted pink with a slow look of wonder dawning on his face.

“Seph.” He whispered.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth felt a smile cross his lips. “I want to stay with you.”

“Me too,” Cloud whispered, pressing forward. “Me too.”

Sephiroth had never kissed before. Technically he wasn’t allowed to. It made his whole body feel brighter. It also alerted a system that had been waiting for days for a response.

Unauthorized behavior detected.

Initiating self-reprimand system.

Initiate Reprimand:  
Yes/No

And Sephiroth made a decision.

* * *

Cait Sith was built for espionage. But being assigned to hunt for Sephiroth felt a great deal to him like sending a corporate spy to diffuse a bomb. Which was, in all technicality, exactly what they had sent him to do.  
  
Still, it was his job. So he followed the trace of him, his last known location, triangulated and triangulated again. Prepared every day for what he would find.

Nothing prepared him to see Shinra’s prize machine again.  
  
He was on his knees in fresh-tilled soil, holding the base of a sapling while a human hammered a spike in beside him. Sephiroth’s skin was miss-matched, and what snippets of his words Cait Sith could catch were shattered and staticked. The human laughed, bright and happy. And to the spy’s shock, Shinra’s favorite weapon of mass destruction smiled too.

The human turned away, going to fetch some ties, and Cait Sith could only watch as Sephiroth lifted his hands carefully from the dirt, lifting them beneath the lowest leaves of the sapling, holding them up to the sun with a tenderness and awe in every line of his roughly repaired body.

Cait Sith considered a great many things in the next few moments, not the least of which was the human who returned with an ice pack for his mechanical companion. And what he finally decided, he put down in words.

Trace amounts of radiation detected were slag.

Unit Sephiroth confirmed destroyed.

And quietly, privately, Reeve wished him all the joy in the world in his afterlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Babysitting


	4. Babysitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a world where Sephiroth chose a path of radical kindness rather than burning the world, he and Cloud must embark on a dangerous mission together: Babysitting Zack and Aerith's daughter.

_[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo) _

* * *

Cloud was well aware that they were not Aerith’s _first_ choice. Or her second, or third for that matter. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, she certainly did. She was well aware that they would lay down their lives for the people they cared for.

But there were some things that were a lot more difficult for a Soldier than laying down their life.

One of those things was being pressed into Cloud’s arms, already squirming and crying in his uncertain hold.

“I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t an emergency.” Aerith was saying, swiftly.

“Ouch, my pride.” Cloud said, a half-smile on his lips.

“Not because of _that_ Cloud, I know you’ll do fine. She’s fussy because she’s teething, that’s all. That and you’re tense as a board, relax a little.”

“Yes ma’am.” said Cloud automatically, his attention on the little creature he was holding. Eyes a bright green stared back at him. Dark tufts of hair stood out of a small recently-bald head. Cloud felt himself soften instantly towards his honorary niece.

“There. I can see you two getting comfy already.” Aerith said, straightening her dress and letting out a breath.

“Yeah, but we both know it’s not really me you’re worried about.” Cloud said.

Aerith’s gaze slid over to Cloud’s strange lover and roommate; a potentially immortal enemy of her goddess who had nonetheless chosen to settle down with Cloud rather than try to bring about Armageddon. It often felt to her like an uneasy, temporary peace. But she had to admit that it had been many years now with no sign of Armageddon whatsoever from the cold man.

Sephiroth’s eyes slid over to her, slow and even as a mantis watching its prey. There was no real malice in his gaze. They all knew what his malice looked like. If anything he looked vaguely disappointed. He turned away from Aerith to stare out the window again.

“I will do no harm.” He said flatly, though Cloud, well practiced in his moods, heard the hurt lurking under the disinterest.

“I don’t mean to distrust you,” Aerith said wearily. “You know how the planet gets.”

“She must be screaming your ear off,” Sephiroth said, stretching languidly on the window seat. “I know the feeling. Go save the world, flower girl. Your little sprouting weed is safe with us.”

Aerith glared at him a long moment, a calculating look in her eyes. Then she looked back to Cloud.

“I won’t be long.” She said, pulling Cloud into a careful half-hug around her infant before lowering her hand to the baby’s cheek.

“I’ll be back so soon, ‘Falna. You won’t even miss me.”

She teared up as she said it, but grinned down at her giggling, wiggling daughter.

“Have fun with your uncle,” Aerith said, poking her daughter’s cheek lightly to illicit another laugh. Then her gaze flicked to the window, realizing her slight, and Cloud watched her expression morph, suddenly a little sadder. “Your uncles.”

She left before she could linger any longer, and Cloud stood in the middle of the room holding her baby. Itty bitty, teeny tiny, soft and squishy and _toothing_ Ifalna.

It didn’t take more than the span of three breaths for the baby to give a hiccuping gasp of upset at the lack of her mother.

“Ah,” Sephiroth sighed, shifting at last to rise from his window seat, wandering over towards Cloud. “And so the weed begins its rampage, uprooting our peace.”

“You’re terrible.” Cloud said mildly, trying to bounce the child like he’d seen Zack do, and only ending up frowning and feeling silly.

Sephiroth hummed, pressing up slowly against Cloud’s side. Being possessive, Cloud thought with a roll of his eyes. But he didn’t object. Touch from Sephiroth usually meant something. He wasn’t casual about it, though he didn’t mind Cloud’s casual touches. At the moment, Cloud was inclined to think that Sephiroth simply wanted to reclaim in his little way the pieces of him Aerith had touched. If he’d been any less subtle about it Cloud wouldn’t have stood for it.

He almost jumped when Sephiroth reached out to the infant. He glanced over, finding Sephiroth staring down at her with his detached, reptilian gaze.

“Her mother’s eyes,” Sephiroth said dryly. “Pity.” But he reached up to touch a fingertip to her fluffy dark hair. “This though.”

“All Zack,” Cloud agreed warmly. “What do you think, mini-Zack? Will we get along alright?”

Ifalna stared up at them through huge green eyes, then promptly burst into wailing, shrieking sobs. Sephiroth tore himself from Cloud’s side in an instant, his hands rising to cover his enhanced ears.

“Heh,” Cloud said to himself. “I thought not…”

* * *

Twenty five years ago, Sephiroth started to practice compassion. It was an effort. A skill he was unpracticed in. He wanted to learn, but there were scarce few instruction guides, and his early life had been nearly completely bereft of the concept on the whole.

He began to practice for the sake of his friends. For Genesis and Angeal, who he liked, but who grew so very quiet when Sephiroth was cruel. It was confusing for him, at first. His cruelty had always impressed and delighted the people he had known before. But not those two.

So he studied the scraps of compassion he could find, and when he finally deployed it, finally put it to use, he found that it was terrifying. Because the girl couldn’t have been more than a teenager, and spy or not, he knew it wasn’t… Kind. So he glanced up at Angeal, and he let the teenager go free instead of killing her.

It made him feel sick, made him feel like a failure, but the look on Angeal’s face…

It was an addictive reaction. His surprise and pleasure and relief. And Sephiroth had never been the sort to stop doing anything just because of a little fear.

* * *

“What’s the matter, huh?” Cloud asked, carefully maneuvering the baby in his arms to meet her eyes, looking her over as she huffed and sniffled and wailed. “Are you hungry? Aerith said you just ate a second ago…”

Sephiroth stayed across the room, still pouting after the opening wail that had sent him into a retreat.

“Perhaps she is simply fond of the sound of her voice.” Sephiroth said flatly.

“Like father like child,” Cloud said, though he sounded strained. “Oh man I wish Barret had been available. I really don’t get along with kids well.”

“She still looks alive, so you’re doing fine,” Sephiroth said. “Screaming will make her lungs healthy.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or really trying your best to be nice,” Cloud accused, narrowing his eyes at Sephiroth. “Oh gods, hush baby, I’m sorry… I know I’m not your mom.”

He paced around the room, feeling a growing well of dread. He glanced to the clock.

* * *

When Angeal died, there was nothing he could do. Nothing except open the door to his apartment to find Zack Fair, still young and yet so forcefully kind-hearted that Sephiroth had learned more of compassion in his acquaintance than in _years_ of research prior.

Zack had not been there to teach him this time. He had been there tear-stained and dust-covered, a look of agonized determination in his face. He was there with two pairs of dog tags, and an apology so heartfelt, so broken, that he could not quite manage to finish saying it.

Zack did not blame Sephiroth for sending him on the mission, or seem to expect anything at all aside from anger. Anger he clearly expected and thought his due.

It was true that Sephiroth ached inside. Ached in ways he had not known before. Ways he did not comprehend yet. But he did not think he was angry.

“Stay?” He’d asked Zack softly, holding the dogtags to his chest, over his heart, wanting them close, not understanding.

It was harder still, and much more frightening, to ask for assistance than to offer it. That same sickness that reared its head every time he spared a life, or troubled himself for another’s sake. But worse, more, almost enough to make him regret asking, only…

Only Zack was hunched in on himself, arms wrapped around his middle and tears standing in his eyes. And when he nodded with a whispered ‘please,’ Sephiroth had let him in.

They hadn’t talked the long night, only sat together in the dark and quiet room, with the dogtags of two men who had once been incredible between them. And sometime in the long, dark hours, Sephiroth had realized that Zack had only ever known him like this. Not as Shinra’s ruthless war-dog, but as a man trying to be kind.

He forced himself past sorrow to stand at the thought, and made them both hot tea. He thought it would have made Genesis proud.

* * *

“You could help,” Cloud noted, glaring at Sephiroth from the kitchen, where he was walking in circles with the infant who was displaying her tragedy by sheer volume.

“I am being patient.” Sephiroth said. “That is as helpful as I care to be right now.”

“And I suppose how helpful I’d like you to be doesn’t enter into it?” Cloud muttered, before frowning, looking down to the miserable child in his arms. “I feel awful. She’s so unhappy…”

“It’s only for a little while,” Sephiroth said, though Cloud could tell the man felt a little guilty. It was in the small things. The way Sephiroth was suddenly straightening a skewed picture frame on the wall. Neatening the arrangement of things on his desk. Trying to fix something.

“Mmhmm,” Cloud said dryly, watching the immortal half-monster poke at the counter top, as if he was considering whether it needed a wash. “But you know we’ll end up doing it again. And then there’s the birthday parties, the sleepovers, the drunken teenage advice… Kid’s going to be part of your life, Sephiroth. You might regret not taking the chance.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer. His eyes narrowed, glaring down at the counter. He glanced up at Cloud a long moment later and turned away just as quickly, going to the stove.

“I know you’re stressed.” he muttered. “I’ll warm some water for tea for you.”

“I’d rather you helped me out with the baby.” Cloud said. “And you know that. Why won’t you?”

Sephiroth was silent a moment. He stared at the child in Cloud’s arms with attention so fixated that Cloud found himself instinctively holding her a little closer.

“Do you know why Aerith hates me?” He asked.

“She doesn’t hate you, Sephiroth, you know that.”

“She doesn’t like me either. May I finish my sentence, or must you one-up me?”

Cloud gestured to him, tilting Ifalna against his chest, rubbing her back as he listened.

“She sees me for what I am.” Sephiroth said after a moment. “What the other half of me is. Always, all the time. If you saw me as she did you would not be here.”

“Disagreed.” Cloud said mildly.

“And if the child--her child sees me that way…”

“Sephiroth.”

“She was fine while it was you and Aerith.”

“She’s just upset that her mom’s not here.”

“If she sees the monster in me’–”

“You’re not a monster!” Cloud snapped, startling the baby to silence for a moment with his frustration.

Sephiroth looked at him a long while, swaying ever so slightly where he stood, not from weakness, but from his perpetual inability to be still when he was upset. Anger, sorrow, pain, joy, they all affected him the same way.

He smiled all the same when he spoke.

“You cannot change reality simply by force of will,” Sephiroth cautioned, though his voice was warmed with fondness.

“Sure I can,” Cloud huffed as the baby recovered herself enough to start sobbing again, despite Cloud’s attempts to shush her. “That’s what you did.”

* * *

The reactor was a nightmare carved in iron, and underneath the great doorway bearing his mother’s name, Sephiroth heard Genesis–-alive but not whole, himself but not–-speak of his history, and of his pain.

And when Genesis said Sephiroth’s cells would cure him, Sephiroth did not hesitate. He pulled off his gloves, let them drop where they would. Cast aside his sorrow and his abject terror, feeling the blood in his veins as an enemy. He held out his hands, and Genesis’s expression of surprise broke his heart. As if he’d turn him down, after everything.

Genesis grabbed his hands an instant later, and the next thing Sephiroth knew was being torn, shredded. Genesis was desperate, greedy, taking and taking and taking. Sephiroth withstood the selfishness. This was not his Genesis. If he gave enough, his Genesis would come back, he was sure

When Genesis finally released him, his eyes were slit-pupiled, and his hair was streaked through not with white, but with silver.

Nothing went back to the way it had been–-it could never have been that simple–-but Genesis did live. And that was something.

And he gave Sephiroth some answers. And a thousand more questions.

Sephiroth spent days in the basement of the library. No one knew for certain when he left. Between one of the endless days of reading and the next, Sephiroth walked quietly out into the night, and vanished into the misty hills.

He didn’t return for years, and when he came back, it was to find Zack and Cloud punished for his disappearance with Hojo’s not-so-tender mercies.

He’d broken them out then, and had not left again. He did not speak of his missing years. The truth of them was simple. He had traveled the world, looking for reason. For evidence to support his feeling that the world did not deserve to burn. For proof of what his mother claimed was true and mankind was worthy of destruction.

He found his evidence and her proof both, in abundance, and had lost years unsure how to reconcile those truths. Learning that Zack and Cloud had suffered while he wandered, while he wondered if humanity was worth it…

It had been a final nail in Jenova’s coffin in his mind. He paid her no more mind. Not a single word. For she had known they suffered, and she had rejoiced in it.

* * *

Cloud stopped pushing. Sephiroth was difficult sometimes, but rarely cruel. And when he was cruel, it always seemed to upset him as much as or more than anyone else affected. So when he conceded Cloud’s point, and merely muttered that he was trying not to make things worse, Cloud let the issue drop. He’d be a solo babysitter. Marlene could do it, after all. And though she could do quite a few things Cloud was hopeless at, he could always pretend this wouldn’t be one of them.

But his ears weren’t significantly less enhanced than Sephiroth’s, and there was a pounding in his skill already going strong, even as little Ifalna slowly, slowly started to settle. But she wasn’t happy. She was just quieter, and that broke Cloud’s heart almost as much as the crying.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart,” He whispered, feeling drained and miserable. “We’ll get you fed and see if you can sleep soon, okay? I’m so sorry.”

His breath hitched only once, and then his silent companion was there. Cloud jumped a little, watching the unearthly motion of Sephiroth’s hair swaying, his strange eyes flicking to the child.

He didn’t speak when he reached out, but his determination was clear. And Cloud gave him a grateful, shaking smile.

“I’ll take her back if she doesn’t like you.” Cloud whispered. And even as he spoke Ilfana was looking up at Sephiroth with her chubby face scrunched in displeasure. She hiccuped and gave a little sob. Cloud watched Sephiroth instantly stiffen, a strained look crossing his face. Cloud saw a distinctly familiar look on Sephiroth’s face. The one that said he knew pain was coming, and he was choosing to move forward anyway.

“Give her a second,” Cloud cautioned, watching. “She’d fuss changing arms for anyone.”

Sephiroth glanced up to him, then turned his eyes fixedly back to the baby. He lifted a finger, brushing it through her dark hair. She whined, kicked a couple of times, as if daring him to drop her. Sephiroth’s face twitched into a smile at the strength of her kicks.

And then her hand found his hair, and she grabbed onto it and yanked, dragging his hair towards her chest to snuggle with.

For a moment Sephiroth resisted. Then he bowed his head so that she could have her prize, letting her sticky fingers paw at his silver hair. He only sighed as she started chewing on it. But it was with a soft, awed smile.

“Thank you,” Cloud whispered, slumping in relief. “Thank the gods she likes you.”

“She likes my hair.”

“Will you let her a little while longer? I’ll get her dinner ready?”

“She’s fine.” Sephiroth said, though he winced as the mighty baby flailed her arms in delight, yanking rhythmically on his bangs.

Cloud stayed still a moment, watching the man who could have ended the world sigh as a baby rediscovered joy by trying to tear his hair out.

* * *

The days following his rescue of Zack and Cloud were harrowing. Life on the run disagreed with him after his long days of wandering. So did most things. Like speaking aloud, and interacting with humans, and remembering to do human things, like rest, and eat, and sleep. He re-learned humanity by trying to help his friends regain their own.

At first, he meant to just help them and only them. For all his questions, for all his uncertainty, and all his battles with Jenova in his mind, he could not so easily trust humanity.

Then there was Barret. And Marlene, and Tifa, and Aerith, who screamed the first time she saw him, sharp and terrified. But she had been standing beside Cloud dressed in a purple dress, so Sephiroth had cared less about her scream than he usually would have. And eventually she stopped watching him as if waiting for a knife.

Somehow, traveling with them, wanting to stay with the two people on the planet he was certain were worth saving, he ended up one of them. Ended up saving the planet with them. Ended up defying his birthright over and over. And each time he acted against her, Jenova dug in her claws. And eventually he learned to act as if the pain was normal. Eventually, he decided that it was worth it. A lifetime of agony, in exchange for these good people being happy.

* * *

“Here comes the Highwind!” Cloud cooed at the baby, waving the spoon in front of the baby’s face. Ifalna only stared at him, her mouth firmly shut.

“Perhaps she prefers the Shera.” Sephiroth suggested.

“Alright, give, your turn,” Cloud said, dropping the spoon in the baby food and throwing his hands up in the air.

Sephiroth smirked at him, sinking to sit. He seemed emboldened by his success. By the child’s apparent lack of fear. But Cloud was starting to see the tells of an attack, the tremor in his fingers when he stilled for too long. The tight muscles at the corners of his eyes. Still, Cloud never called him on it until Sephiroth brought it up.

“Now,” Sephiroth said, taking his position across from Ifalna, his expression all smooth and serious. “I also do not particularly enjoy eating, but a body requires sustenance. So if you will please open up for the spoon, I will not grace you with the indignity of my impressions of Cid Highwind’s precious airships.”

He offered the spoon. Ifalna stared at him. Then she failed her hands in a strike so neat the Soldiers had to be a little bit impressed. That the mashed peas splattered across Sephiroth’s face was a somewhat unfortunate reality.

“Hm.” Said Sephiroth even as he wiped a hand over his face “I see diplomacy will get us nowhere.”

Which was how Cloud got to be the only human being on the planet to have ever seen Sephiroth, grim and looking particularly bedraggled, instruct an baby to ‘devour the airship.’

* * *

Sephiroth knew he wasn’t right. He’d always been odd. He was stranger now. Had a command of magic that was all shades of wrong, and that made his human friends uncomfortable, no matter whether it was used for good or not. He often had to take extra time sorting through information, as Jenova tried to distract him in his own mind. And if he spent too long around Aerith, both of them ended up with headaches.

After the battle, after killing what pieces of Jenova they could, after banishing the Weapons, after toppling Shinra, it became clear exactly how little he was ready to not be at war. To be a normal human. To adjust to a routine. To a life.

He found himself walking one day, and walked for days more before Cloud found him. Cloud, beautiful in his leathers, competent on his motorcycle, worry on his face.

“Come stay with me,” he’d offered, and Sephiroth had agreed.

He had stayed. And every time he thought he should go, there was Cloud, asking him about whether they should get a new sofa, about what groceries they should get for the next couple weeks, about whether he’d mind helping Cloud out with his delivery service as they tried to be normal again.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Sephiroth asked one day, weary. “What I am? What he tried to make you? The things you’ve gone through because of my genes?”

“Some of those things bother me, sometimes.” Cloud said easily. “But none of them are you. You’re my friend, and I know it’s hard. Maybe because I’m like you, at least a little. So I think I understand a little better than the others, you know? What it feels like to be on this side of everything.”

He’d looked at Sephiroth as if trying to read his mind, and then added “I like having you here.”

They’d kissed that night, and Sephiroth had never told him, then or any day after, that it was his first. Cloud already worried too much.

* * *

The problem was, now that the baby was happy, she didn’t want to sleep.

They had cleaned her up after her post-dinner blowout. Cloud had been shocked that it was a joint effort, but Sephiroth’s shyness and fear seemed to have been set aside for the moment. He helped without once complaining of the smell that made their eyes water, or the messy squirming baby, having too much fun with their fumbling efforts to be helpful in getting clean.

It had also lead to a particularly devastating and embarrassing bruise on Cloud’s jawline and Sephiroth’s forehead, from when the baby had made a distressed noise on the table, and they had cracked their heads together in an effort to check on her.

She had laughed at them, of course.

Every time she started to fuss, Sephiroth soullessly and exhaustedly handed her some of his hair. Every time she started chewing, Cloud fed her a bite or two before she decided that his fingers made for better chew toys.

The green pea mash would never come out of their shirts.

But when Cloud caught Sephiroth phasing out in the middle of the room, he knew it had little to do with the baby.

“Hey love,” He said softly, settling Ifalna on his hip, infinitely more familiar with her capabilities than he had been hours ago. “Try to tune her out, okay?”

“It’s okay,” Sephiroth said, sounding weary. “She is not being clever. Only cruel.”

“No wonder her plan lost and yours succeeded.” Cloud said warmly, moving closer. But Sephiroth took a step back away from him, his pinched expression tightening.

“Keep her safe from me a little while,” he whispered. “I do not trust myself while she whispers.”

“You’ve never hurt one of us before.” Cloud commented, but kept his distance.

“You’ve always kept back when I asked.” Sephiroth replied, his eyes closing in exhaustion.

Cloud waited, swaying with the baby as she fiddled with his earrings, pulled at his clothes, played with his short hair. Though she was obviously getting pouty without her preferred chew toy.

“I’m sorry,” Sephiroth whispered. “Your world will never be normal while I am in it. Children, marriage, normalcy…”

“Sephiroth,” Cloud said slowly and softly. “Just relax. I have exactly what I want.”

Sephiroth stood stock still in the middle of the room. Cloud smiled down at the baby, bouncing her and whispering silly words to her while he waited. She patted his cheeks with hands that were somehow sticky again even though he had wiped them off just a few minutes ago. She was adorable in her purple koala pajamas, the second clothes change since she’d arrived hours ago in their apartment. They had one more change ready to go in case of the next emergency…

Finally, Sephiroth let out a breath, sliding his eyes open again. For a moment they were all wrong, crystal and light, fury and ice. Then they softened again.

“I’ll kill her for you one day,” Cloud promised, bouncing the baby on his hip. “Find the last of her roots and burn them out. I’m always looking, Sephiroth.”

“I’d as soon you forgot it and enjoyed your retirement,” Sephiroth said, soft but fond. He moved over to the sofa, slumping down in exhaustion. Cloud glanced out the window. The sun was rising. He moved over, and passed over the baby when Sephiroth held his hands out to her. She instantly clung onto his long hair happily, pulling and tugging gleefully with her toy.

Cloud slid onto the sofa beside Sephiroth, smiling down at the baby as he felt Sephiroth’s body shudder under him, covered in cold sweat. He pressed a soft kiss to Sephiroth’s shoulder, leaning there gently.

“You know what?” He said quietly. “I think we did great.”

Sephiroth let out a low chuckle, and bounced his leg a couple of times, drawing a squeal of delight from the Ifalna on his leg.

“Yes,” Sephiroth murmured. “I rather suppose we did.”

* * *

“Babe, they’ll be okay,” Zack soothed, walking beside Aerith towards the home of his best friends. “They’d have called if there was a problem. You know that.”

“I know,” she said. “But I was rude to Sephiroth, even. I was so worried about having to go and having to leave her… I didn’t even give them proper instructions. It can’t have been an easy night for them.”

It had been a rough night on her. She’d been needed, her healing talents invaluable in the rescue effort Zack was leading after a fire in Edge. Her hands itched for her child, and the lifestream was screaming in her ears.

“You’re so nice,” Zack grinned at her. “Here I was just thinking how much fun it was going to be hearing them bitch about it.”

“Mean,” Aerith accused, though it softened her worry into a smile. “I’m sure everyone’s fine. I just feel bad asking. I know it’s a lot.”

Zack smiled at her, arriving at their apartment door and rapping lightly. For a long moment there was no answer, then a muffled ‘come in,’ from inside the apartment. Zack dug out his spare key, popping the door open.

“I don’t hear crying!” he said cheerfully. “So things must be going well!”

“A-BAA!” cried a delighted voice, and Zack laughed at the greeting from his daughter.

Aerith steeled herself for what she would see. For a moment, when she stepped into the room, she almost screamed. Almost ran to rip her child from Sephiroth’s arms. Because he was holding her–HOLDING her–in his dripping ichor arms. And she knew, from what the others had told her, that he was handsome. But he didn’t look handsome to her. He was slanted angles, skewed and stitched together, human and not human, dripping with pain, both caused and experienced

He was holding her daughter. And she was holding him. Her hands fisted in the sticking strands of his hair, that clung and moved like seaweed to her sight. And she watched the ichor monster smile down at her baby with a look that even through the planet’s cruel filter over his existence looked kind.

Don’t be foolish, she scolded herself. You’ve seen this before.

And she had. This awful vision hovering over her friends. Guarding them. Jumping in front of her to take a hit that would have left her in pieces. Calling down starfire then crouching by the monsters he'd killed with a twist of regret on his almost-human mouth.

The planet liked to make her feel that she didn’t know him. _Couldn't_ know him. But she did, and she knew she could trust him. No matter what he appeared to be.

“My friend,” Sephiroth was saying, carefully passing Ifalna to Zack. “She is a marvel.”

“A super energetic, completely exhausting, very very funny marvel,” Cloud agreed with a grin. Sephiroth answered his grin, with his sharp teeth gleaming. Aerith moved forward, and damn the planet.

She held out her hands to both of them. Cloud fell into the offered hug easily, but Sephiroth lingered. Hesitated. Shifted in place, his hair swinging behind him as he shifted his weight. Then he slowly stepped forward, letting her touch him.

He didn’t feel like a dripping monster.

“Thank you both so much,” She murmured. “I can tell she had such a lovely time.”

“Oh, we did too,” Cloud said, clearly bashful. “I think we’d be down to do that again.”

“Perhaps with more notice?” Sephiroth suggested. “And I understand. If that is not comfortable for you.”

Aerith looked up at him. At the red eye that looked down on her from one side, and the green from the other. At the way Cloud pressed up close to his side, and Zack watched her, cradling their baby.

“Why on earth would I be uncomfortable?” She asked. “Any child should be so lucky as to have you two for uncles.”

The image of sharp teeth and inhuman eyes did not in the slightest diminish the joy that she saw in his smile, and she once more cursed the planet for depriving her of this man’s friendship for so long.

They said their goodbyes shortly after that, and she lingered just a moment as Zack opened up the door, listening behind her.

“Good gods, I’m exhausted.” Cloud muttered.

“Hah,” Sephiroth said, but from his tone of voice it was an agreement.

“Let’s go to bed.” Cloud muttered. “My deliveries can wait.”

“Poor Cloud.” Sephiroth chuckled.

“You’re not tired?”

“A little, perhaps. But…”

“But?”

“Worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: PIRATES


	5. PIRATES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud has sailed with Captain Tifa and her crew of misfits for years now, and the sea is as familiar a place as the land to him. But the ghost ship and her silver haired captain... Aye. Those are new.

_[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo) _

* * *

> All men fear the great sea snakes  
> Save those beyond the grave  
> But joinin’ up their empty ranks  
> Does not a man make brave  
> If ye should see his burnin’ eye  
> Or feel his tendril’d hair  
> Leave yer treasure, run and fly  
> For death will be unfair.
> 
> XVIITX— That Odd Fella With the Glasses

Captain Tifa, Cloud thought to himself not for the first time, was occasionally a terrible influence on them all. She was brave, no doubt. And savvy and quick to boot. She was a fighter like no other man or woman Cloud knew. All these things were fair and true both, and when she captained her main ship the Avalanche, with their full accompaniment, she was as steadfast and reliable as their own mainsail.

But when it came to these smaller excursions, on her second boat, The Seven Heavens…

Well. She became more of a jib sail. Rather light, a bit airy, and all-together too easy to swing about.

“Did I,” She was saying, loose limbed and swaying like a personal ocean, propped against the wheel as if it were a particularly awkward chair. “Did I,” She pronounced it like ayyye, from how she was slurring. “Ever tell ye all about Cloud as a boy?”

Her accent got worse when she drank, Cloud thought sorrowfully. Thick and heavy like the eldest folks back in Nibelheim.

And apparently, she was in the mood for embarrassing childhood stories.

“Did ye know we were- ahhh- we were childhood friends?” She added, trying to lean more of her weight against the wheel and managing to nearly topple herself and to list the ship decidedly starbord.

“Aye, we’ve heard tha’ one,” Cid grumbled, scratching at his stubborn stubble. “Th’ tiny hometown an’ runnin inta each other out on th’ sea, an’ you shanghai-in’ him.”

“There was more buckle an’ swash to it than that,” Tifa told him with a pout, gesturing down to herself. “After all, I was involved.”

“I, the great pirate queen, have a story!” Bellowed Yuffie, puffing out her chest and slapping her open palm against her sternum.

“Oh aye, great fun this’ll be,” Cid grumbled, taking another huge swig.

“It goes somethin’ like this,” Yuffie cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and belched like a beached whale.

The whole lot of the drunkards howled with laughter. Even the ever-silent Vincent tucking his chin into the folds of the cape he wore to disguise his chuckle. Cloud sighed, staring off ahead, watching the empty ocean with dutifully sober eyes. Had to be one sober bilgerat to make sure they didn’t run aground or straight into danger, but Cloud hated to be that particular bilgerat.

There was nothing to see but the ocean reflecting moonlight, just as there had been all the night before that, and the night before that. The wind was still in their sails, but mild and soft. They had the provisions. Had expected this deadzone, Tifa assured him, and perhaps one more after that. But past those expanses of empty water were forests, wild and beautiful, filled with long-dead creatures and ancient ruins.

“If it’s so nice as all that, why would we be th’ first?” Cloud had asked skeptically, chin propped in his palm.

“Well easy,” Tifa said, lifting a finger and winking at him. “I’ve got th’ key.”

But she didn’t produce a key on the day Cloud joined her and the skeleton crew on The Seven Heavens. She’d produced a little lyre, gold and sweet.

“The woods’ll trap a man till he goes mad or gives in,” She'd said, looking pleased as punch. “But this pretty little thing’ll play so nice the woods themselves’ll go ta sleep.”

“An who’s s’posed ta be pluckin’ a harp while we’re scoutin’ fer treasure?” Cid had grumbled, chewing on his cigar and scratching at his stubble.

Tifa’s bright eyes had turned to Yuffie, who had sighed heavily, propping her arms akimbo and scowling.

“Here I am, hopin’ I’d been picked fer my aptitude at combat, an’ ye jest want the princessy parts.”

“I want the whole kit n’ kaboodle,” Tifa assured her. “Ye’ll see yer share of action, Yuffie. I guarantee it.”

“Fine,” Yuffie snapped. “Hand it over, eh? I’ll have ta practice, yer Midgar fiddles ‘r a fair sight different ta th’ ones back home.”

“Little heavy on th’ accent,” Cloud commented, smiling when the Wutaian princess turned pirate glared at him. “You’ve been spendin’ too much time wi’ our Cid.”

Yuffie had chosen some very fine piratical words to tell Cloud where to shove it, and it had lightened the mood instantly.

For all her complaining, she was good. It had become a ritual, at night. Sitting together listening to Yuffie play the so-called Lunar Harp, her fingers growing more deft, more adept, as she worked at it.

Of course, more often than not, she was plucking out the tune to the bawdiest songs she knew. And even more often than that, Cid was teaching her new ones in his near-tuneless and always-enthusiastic voice.

Those nights were making the weary, boring travel worth it. Yuffie playing the harp, the crew gathered around, listening intently while Tifa gazed ahead. Till the first one of them recognized the tune and chimed in with the lyrics, and the whole mess of them dissolved into laughter.

Vincent was usually sitting high above, perched on the mainsail’s boom, his leg swinging slowly as he listened in from above. He was most at home in the rigging, and hauled it like he was born to. He’d only joined the game once, slipping Yuffie a scrawl on a bit of parchment. She had grinned bright at the request, and lit into plucking out the light, airy dance number like a woman born to it.

But this night, she had drunken far too much to play steady anymore, and had abandoned the harp for idle chat and name-calling under the stars.

Cloud was about to give in and ask for a drink himself, and sober lookouts be damned, when he saw the fog.

“Cap’n.” he said, voice low and intent as he stepped off the rail, pacing closer to Tifa on the quarterdeck. “There’s a strange fog bank rollin’ in ahead.”

Tifa’s expression sobered instantly, though her eyes seemed to be having a hard time focusing. She stood from the wheel, turning to follow Cloud’s gaze. The sounds of their conversation and chatter died over the still water, leaving only the quiet lap of waves against their bow and the easy murmur of the ship groaning quietly to herself.

“Take up yer posts,” She ordered, tightening her belt and straightening her cap. “All eyes out for obstacles. Take us to halfsail.”

“We’re already at damn near a standstill,” Cid muttered, but started on the ropes, even as Vincent climbed the mainsail with a natural grace, ready to check the roll of the sails and lend his eyes from above.

“Cloud, to the prow,” She muttered when he hesitated at her side.

“It ain’t natural,” Cloud said. “Caution, Cap’n.”

“I didn’ come t’ sea yesterday,” Tifa said sharply. “On, ye spikey thing. Keep those sober eyes peeled.”

She lifted a boot and kicked him on the ass, and Cloud scowled sharply at her, but jogged easy across the deck to reach his post. He braced one foot on the prow, pulling out his spyglass to get a better look. He sighted down it and frowned more deeply. The night made it harder to see, and the moon, bright as she was, only made the fog that much more impenetrable.

“Eyes?” She called from the wheel.

“Nothin’ Captain!” Cloud called back. “Just fog! Vincent’?”

The silent man shook his head, standing on the boom with sure, steady ease. He was pacing slowly, back and forth, along the wood. Agitated as a cat. He waved a hand in front of his face, glancing back to Cloud.

“Too thick.” Cloud agreed.

“Dampen the lanterns.” Tifa ordered. “We’ll stick out like a sore thumb if someone’s hidin’ out there in the mist.”

“Oh, an’ we’re lookin’ ta get plowed into?” Cid asked roughly.

“Rather be rammed by accident than broadsided by a Shinra ship.” Tifa growled, just loud enough to be heard.

Cloud spat off the side of the ship, and heard the others follow suit, spitting where they could.

“Fair point.” Cid grumbled, glaring out into the fog as it slowly coiled around their ship, accepting them like an embrace.

Yuffie slipped from lantern to lantern, turning them down to nothing more than the softest light to warn them where their rails were. The ship descended into a dark silence in the fog, and Cloud felt like the very ocean was holding her breath around them. He held onto his spyglass, staring out into the fog as if his eyes might at any moment discern something of the empty air.

The moon sent eerie reflections into the moving mist, shadow and light making no sense in the play of her reflection. More than once Cloud almost stiffened to call out a rock before the figure resolved itself into yet more nothing.

There was a solid ‘thump’ behind him, and he turned to watch Vincent straighten where he’d jumped down from his post. He released the rope he’d used to slow himself, striding over to Cloud’s side. He placed one hand on Cloud’s shoulder and pointed with the other, to their port side. Cloud stared out at the fog a long moment before his breath caught in understanding.

“Ship to port!” He called back.

“Hells,” Tifa cursed. “She look hale?”

“No,” Cloud called back after a moment. “Dead in th’ water. All I can see o’ her sails look torn ta ribbons. She’s got nothin’.”

For a moment there was silence on the ship. Cloud glanced back, only barely making out Tifa’s shape at the wheel in the dark.

“Well?” Cid said. “Let’s move then, before she decides we’re worth takin’!”

“What’s the holdup?” Yuffie asked from nearby, where she’d been leaning over the rail, peering into the dark ocean.

“Could be survivors of an attack.” Cloud said, each word careful and uncertain.

“Their problem.” Cid said roughly.

“Could be they’d gladly slit our throats an’ steal our ship.” Yuffie agreed sharply.

Cloud glanced to Vincent, who was looking down at him with the moon glinting in his eyes. He swallowed, feeling his silent encouragement deeply.

“Could be they need help.” He offered quietly.

“Could be we lose our lives and our hope of treasure and end up just as bad as them.” Tifa replied.

“If Aerith were here,” Cloud said, and felt his words choke off. She was there in a way. Somewhere down in the depths of the ocean, where they’d laid her to rest.

The silence could have drowned a man. The fog filled their lungs, their eyes, as they breathed in the quiet after her name being spoken aloud.

“Damn it all,” Tifa muttered, and Cloud just barely saw her shadow scrub at her eyes. “Fer our girlie then.”

“She always did make trouble.” Yuffie muttered.

“Some good finds too, though.” Cid said, a little too hoarse for his usual muttering.

Vincent’s hand lighted upon Cloud’s shoulder briefly.

“Bringing us about,” Tifa called. “Cloud an’ I’ll check it out.”

“No cap’n,” Cloud called. “I’ll hop over an’ give her a look. Yer all wasted fer a fight, an’ I’m squirrelly enough. If it’s trouble I’ll hop right back over an’ we’ll fly out.”

“Risky,” Yuffie accused. “An’ you tell me I’m impulsive.”

“Not impulsive,” Cloud said firmly. “Sensible. I’ll scout it out an’ come back before Cid can chew up th’ rest 'a that cigar without ever rememberin’ ta light it.”

“I ain’t supposed ta be makin’ lights in the fog. Remember, Spikes?” Cid huffed.

“Care and caution, first mate,” Tifa said firmly. “We’ll give ya good time, an’ be ready with pistols and blades should ye need ta make a getaway.”

Vincent was already scaling back into position, gathering rope for Cloud to make the swing over to the stranger ship.

“Won’t be necessary,” Cloud grinned, patting his own blade. “But I thankee for th’ caution.”

He scaled the mast, clumsy in the wake of Vincent’s fluid motions. He gathered the rope he was handed, using it partially to keep his balance on the boom, even as Vincent stepped neatly around him, leaving just him, the end of the boom, and the space between their ship and the husk in the water, silent but still floating.

“Who knows,” Cloud muttered, tightening his grip on the rope. “Maybe there’ll be some reward ta be had as well.”

He waited till Vincent tapped his spine, signalling his start. Then he sprinted forward, rope firmly in hand, using its tension to let himself sprint along the side of the boom rather than upright, launching himself right off the very tip.

He curved neatly through the air, passing over the shining waters. When there was wood beneath him again, he dropped his line, letting only the tie around his hips linger–His way back to the ship whether he liked it or not if she pulled off.

It was like being dropped into the water, he thought, the moment his boots landed on the deck. The sudden silence, the sudden chill, after warmth and sound and safety. He took a breath of the air, smelling stagnant wood and a sort of sneaking, unstoppable decay.

“Hail!” Called Cloud into the silence, turning a slow circle as he took in the ship. She must have been a glory in her day. Some little pieces of her bridge still gleamed with silver rivets. The wood was old, and the moon was dark, but he thought it’d been stained dark. She was big too, bigger than the Seven Heavens. Almost as big as the Highwind herself.

“Be there any survivors?” He called. “My crew an’ I have room for a soul or two what need assistance, if ye be amenable an’ handy aboard a good ship.”

“I have no need of help.” A low voice spoke, too close.

Cloud turned, hand on the hilt of his sword at once, staring into the mist.

It seemed to resolve itself into his shape. To part around the figure striding forward reluctantly, clinging to his chest, his face, his hair. Cloud stared, fixated, at the figure emerging. His gleaming coat, his even stride, the long hair braided back on his left side, shining like silver in the moon.

“What manner of man be ye?” Cloud gasped, taking a half-step back, his hand still on his sword.

The man watched him, tilting his head slowly.

“You board my boat and demand my manner?” He said, his voice rough with seawater but not lilting or accented. He spoke like a noble, but the gleam of jewels dangling from his ears, around his neck; the open jacket and the bare chest…

The man watched Cloud a long, dangerous moment before his expression slid into a smile, wild and predatory. Cloud tried to keep his eyes on his face, but he could swear out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t tell the difference between the stranger's long hair and the mist.

“Give me your name.” The man said, eyes bright in the moonlight.

Ghost ship, Cloud’s mind supplied his terrified heart at last. One of the lost ones, the sunken ones. Only he stood upon it, stood upon it with this man too physical to be a ghost, his every step making the deck groan softly under his weight.

“I think perhaps,” Cloud said, edging closer to the side of the boat. “I ought not give it to ye.”

The man laughed, low and dangerous.

“Then only one question I’ll ask ye,” The man said, his voice taking on a quiet growl as he moved slowly closer. Cloud glanced to the stranger's side. To the cutlass lashed there around his hips. He wasn’t touching it, but that did not mean safety.

“What does the name Shinra mean to you?” He asked in a growl, and Cloud felt a shiver run up his spine. A wrong answer, one the man didn’t like, and he was for certain overpowered. From the looks of the fellow before him he was at the very least in danger, and oh, he did not want his friends hauling his corpse from the water, tied to their ship’s spare rope.

But his body was already responding to the hated name. His nose wrinkled as if at a foul smell, and he spat on the deck at the man’s feet. And with that stone cast, he followed it with words.

“I’ll sink every one of ‘em.” He hissed, thinking of Aerith’s pale face where she should have been their joyous, shining first mate.

The man paused a few steps away, his expression blank. Then a dangerous smile crossed his lips.

“I could help you with that,” He purred. “If you would, little nameless pirate.”

The word 'pirate' was strange on his tongue, Cloud thought. Something of hatred, something of adoration. He pressed closer to the edge of the boat.

“I think,” he said slowly. “That I’ll be stickin’ with my crew.”

“A pity.” The man said, straightening out of the predatory pose he’d taken for a moment. He sighed softly, and Cloud was certain he didn’t imagine the fog drifting from his lips to join the rest of it. “You’d be quite a treasure.”

Cloud stared at him, feeling his face heat. But before he could respond, before he could decide whether to be flattered or furious, the rope around his middle tugged once.

“You’ll go without exchanging names?” The man was saying.

“Ye give me th’ feel of a man what might keep it if I gave it to ye.” Cloud said lowly. “Whoever ye are.”

“Sephiroth,” the man said. “Now you have mine, whether you will or not. Perhaps you’ll have need of it on your way, pirate.”

Cloud backed away from him till he felt the rail at his back. The man didn’t follow, only watching, but Cloud felt the familiar tickle at the back of his neck. The one that meant enemies, danger, something at his back. He tugged back on the rope twice, but he did not turn his back on the beautiful pale man in the mist until he was diving overboard into the cold darkness of the ocean.

When the others hauled him on board, he only pointed onward, insistently.

“Go,” He hissed through chattering teeth. He was shaking, but it was not from the ocean’s stinging chill. “Go.”

They cleared the fog in short order, but Cloud found he could not adequately describe to them why they had run.

The man had seemed so inhuman. The ship so alive. Perhaps only the fog and moon, he thought. Only the fog and the moon playing tricks on his mind.

* * *

He was hard pressed to tell whether the harp was magical, and Yuffie as talented as ‘ere was a lute player, or whether they’d wandered through a perfectly nice forest playing every ditty on their minds like a rabid pack of bards hunting a new mark.

Either way they’d come to the promised empty city, the houses empty and unguarded, still packed full of valuables. They’d each carried a sense of unease into their mark, but had quickly abandoned it for a sense of purpose.

Sailing wasn’t free any more than living was. And since the folks what had been there before didn’t seem to be doing either sailing or living, they had no need of jewelry or gold pieces. Or even one particularly nice chair that Tifa fancied for the captain’s quarters.

But when the night fell and the world dimmed, it was with a silent, unanimous feeling that they turned back to the ship for sleeping. Tired as they were of their cots, there would have been no rest for them in and among those empty houses.

They returned the next morning at daybreak for a second round, the previous day's haul emptied into their chests and the ship still high in the water. They wandered the houses like royalty at a shop, picking and choosing the best. Cid was rough, turning over dressers to find hidden stashes left behind, breaking into buildings to hunt for better tools. The others played it a bit more carefully. Cloud found a new sash in one house and tied it around his hips, smiling at the layers of silk-smooth royal purple caressed his bare skin.

He’d be keepin’ that one to himself.

He looked up at his reflection, tilting his head to admire the scar at the corner of his lips and crossing his left eye. The way they made him look a bit more like a pirate than he had when he’d begun this life at Tifa’s side.

He heard a crash from next door and went to assist Cid with whatever he was up to, sparing no more time to vanity. Though he had to admit to preening slightly as Yuffie, wrapped in cloths she’d liked and a jewel on every finger, praised his taste.

That night they celebrated aboard The Seven Heavens, drinking to their last night on the strange isle. Yuffie, Cloud, and Cid sang together while Tifa and eventually even the smiling Vincent (wearing a new jacket hanging down to his calves) clapped their beat.

> “AN' SHE TUGGED ME PROW  
> AN' SHE SLAPPED ME AFT  
> AN' SHE SHUFFLED ON ME SAILPOST”

They were howling and dancing, a celebration as old as there had been bands of adventurers out to dare the world. That night they drank and danced and ate their cured meat. And when they wore out, they all lay back on the deck together, gazing up at the stars and listening to Yuffie’s tales, quietly and reverently spoken. The stories of her homeland, before Shinra had stolen it from her.

In the morning, they set sail, squinting in the sun and grunting to one another, their ship only slightly heavier in the water, for they’d been wise on what they’d chosen to take.

The Shinra fleet met them only hours later.

If there was something about the ocean that Cloud would never be used to, it was how pursuit felt when flying across the sea. He’d grown used to running on land when he was younger, escaping everything-- even himself-- with sheer speed.

On the sea it was a game of numbers. The twist of the sail. The twitch of the wheel. The eyes of your watchdogs. But it was down to the make of the boat as well. And Shinra had an edge. For though the wind was in The Seven Heaven's favor, Shinra had more than wind.

“Prisoners.” Tifa marked grimly as they watched the oars unfurl from the bottom of the Shinra boat. “That’s what’ll become of us if they catch up.”

Vincent was unmoving, curled with his back to the mast, staring out at the ocean, away from the ships. He had shut down at the first sight of the boats, and none of them could have moved him. They didn’t try. It wasn’t every day you were haunted by the men who’d cut out your tongue and worked you to the brink of death.

If not for Aerith, and her damnable compassion, and her habit of jumping into any situation where she saw suffering...

“Damn them for havin’ three ships.” Cloud hissed. “Were it one I’d say we stand and slit their throats.”

“Without sinking the boat, there’s the trick,” Yuffie muttered, glancing to Vincent as well before turning her eyes back to the sails.

“We need someone up,” Tifa said. “Cloud, that’s you.”

“Yes cap’n” Cloud whispered. He stooped, squeezing Vincent’s shoulder once before climbing the mast.

The man was shaking worse than the sails in a tempest.

Cloud did his best, wielding the ropes with what strength and skill he had. The ships still gained on them.

“Captain,” He called down to Tifa, gripping a rope to keep his balance as he leaned down to see the wheel. “They’re gaining! Do we surrender or fight?”

He never heard her answer. There was a resounding shot, and the explosion nearly caught Cloud head-on. It missed, but barely. The mast split in a terrible splinter of wood below him, and started to fall in a dizzying lurch. Nice shot, Cloud thought grimly to the ship he could see, canon still billowing smoke. A very nice shot indeed.

He hit the water in a tangle of rigging, and the mast crashed down above him. The mainsail covered him, pressing him down away from the surface like a shroud. Cloud scrambled for his dagger, pulling it from his belt to slash through the sail in short, choppy motions. He cut it away, lungs already burning as he fought his way through the slit in the fabric. His eyes burned in the water as he forced them open, trying to orient himself.

He caught sight of the sun through the water, a series of terrible crashes and explosions above him. He kicked up to reach it, but snagged and kept sinking. The rope he’d used to brace himself was wrapped around his leg. He twisted, struggling against the familiar crush of water. He wasn’t panicking. He was efficient, sawing at the rope with his knife rather than wasting time trying to untangle himself. His thoughts were not on his burning lungs. They were on the fight above him, the distant thunder of canons.

And they stayed there, even as the world went red. Right up until he could no longer hold his breath. Then his mind wandered to a misty night, a ghost ship, and a name he held that he hadn’t asked for.

Then there was darkness, and the softly fading thunder.

* * *

Cloud jerked awake in a frenzy, a tangle of ropes and sails and seawater. He was not in the water. He gasped in desperate breaths of air, launching to his feet to get his bearings. Not his ship. Shinra? The others—

He sprinted to the side of the ship, gripping the rail, his leg snagging in the ropes that had nearly drowned him, holding him back.

He froze, staring out at the sea. It was open. Empty. There were no ships. There was only the island they'd come from, and the roll of waves.

Cloud’s stomach dropped. He was miles behind where his friends were if the island was there. Miles behind Shinra, behind the battle. He glanced down to his hands, wrinkled with water and trembling.

The wood under his feet and along the rail was stained dark. Made darker by the seawater he was dripping onto it. He choked in alarm, then kept choking. He reached for the rail, dragged out by his leg still bound in the ropes behind him.

The rope snapped all at once, and Cloud leaned over the side of the ship, throwing up seawater back into its home. There was a low chuckle behind him, but no one approached. Cloud gagged and retched, choking for breath between fits. When he finally had control of his body again, he forced himself to turn, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and staring at the person behind him.

Sephiroth stood in daylight as pale and beautiful as he had seemed in the mist-filled night. He was watching Cloud with blatant amusement, his sword embedded rudely in the deck of his own ship where it had sliced Cloud’s ankle free.

“You.” Cloud choked out around his burning throat.

Sephiroth’s smile only widened, wry and unnerving.

“You saved me?” Cloud glanced around the ship. Only them, no crew, only tattered sails and stained-dark wood. “How? Why?”

“It occurred to me just before you left,” Sephiroth said, crossing his arms and leaning all his weight on one leg, leaving his hip cocked ever so slightly. “That you are a terrible liar.”

Cloud’s stomach dropped and twisted. Perhaps not so much a rescue after all. He felt for his sword, but it was gone, along with his dagger.

“I’ve not lied to you.” He rasped, glancing from Sephiroth to the ruin and wreckage he’d been tangled in.

“No,” Sephiroth agreed. “Not once. I wasn’t sure till I asked about Shinra. That pleasantly startled look on your face when you realized you’d blurted out truth… In honesty it did my heart good to see a man so flummoxed by his honesty. You must not be a terribly good pirate.”

“I stick to the plunder and the sailing and leave the lying to the captain.” Cloud said slowly, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sure you do.” Sephiroth chuckled. “But even as you were going, I realized what that implied.”

He moved forward then, a slow swaggering walk, graceful and proud and unreserved. Cloud stiffened for his approach, glaring up at him as best he could while still trembling under the lingering cold promise of death.

“When you boarded my ship,” Sephiroth’s eyes were bright as gems this close, his hair shining like silver. “You said you’d come to lend aid. You were not lying, were you.”

“No." Said Cloud, and no more than that lest he give something ELSE away to the dangerous creature before him.

“I thought not,” Sephiroth murmured. “You came aboard to save me, all good intentions. What a strange little pirate you are indeed.”

“Why are you here?” Cloud asked, patience gone.

“Why, to return the favor,” Sephiroth said, gesturing to the tangle of wreckage on his deck. “You came with the intent to save me, and I have repaid that effort. Though perhaps somewhat more successfully.”

Cloud gaped at him, watching as the man’s look of pleasure with himself deflated into quiet confusion.

“Will there be no thanks for your rescue then?” He asked with a hint of wounded pride.

“I do thank ye,” Cloud whispered roughly. “I do. I do not wish ta know why ye were so close behind us, nor how ye found me, but I do thank ye.”

“Very good.” Sephiroth said, nodding. “Then I shall sleep easier knowing my debt to your intentions paid. Will you give me your name now?”

“I shall not, though I am grateful to ye,” Cloud whispered. “For I still fear, as honest as I may be in my failings, you do not share those faults.”

“I have not lied to you,” Sephiroth said, still smiling.

“Ye’ve omitted.” Cloud supplied.

“Harsh but fair,” Sephiroth said. “Keep your name then, little pirate. What will you do?”

Cloud turned to the ocean, searching for any sign of the battle raging.

“We went northeast,” he muttered, “Hopin’ ta catch the southwestern wind, for it had blown fair the past few nights. If we sail hard and fast, we can catch them, for I am sure their prisoners cannot row day and night.”

“We?” Sephiroth asked, scoffing.

Cloud froze, his plan grinding to a lurching halt. He looked to Sephiroth, his eyes intense.

“My crew–- My friends were out there, with Shinra hot on their heels when they shot me down.”

“Then they are dead or imprisoned,” Sephiroth said, shrugging and pulling his sword out of the deck at last, as if he were finally done waiting for Cloud to observe his efforts to free him. “You may believe whichever makes you feel better.”

“I’ll have them back.” Cloud hissed through his teeth.

“With what army?” Sephiroth scoffed. “A fleet of Shinra ‘trade’ ships and you’d run in for friendship?”

Cloud stared at him, hard.

“Aye,” he growled. “In a heartbeat.”

“Pity my boat is useless then, isn’t it?” Sephiroth said, eyes not on Cloud at all anymore, but on the horizon.

“I’ll swim if I have to.”

“And have no favor to call in the second time you drown.”

Cloud clenched his jaw and his fists both. The salt drying on his skin itched something awful, and burned to boot. He glanced up at the tattered sails of Sephiroth’s ship, twisting shabby in the wind.

“Have ye twine and needles?” Cloud asked, whirling on Sephiroth.

“You would ask favors so soon after being plucked from death’s jaws?” Sephiroth was pacing, not outwardly aggressive, but with the slow and contemplative motions Cloud had seen in wild animals, not yet sure if they were observing a threat or an easy meal.

“I would mend your sail,” Cloud said. “T’would be a favor to you. Perhaps enough to buy me one in return.”

“Some things are beyond mending.” Sephiroth said.

“Have ye twine and needles?” Cloud repeated.

Sephiroth watched him a long moment before he gave a stately nod.

“Wait here.” He instructed.

Cloud climbed the rigging the moment Sephiroth returned. His hands were shaking, his whole body sore. His fingers were trembling too much for it to be easy work, threading the needle. He didn’t let it slow him down.

He did not have the tools, so he pulled off his salt-crusted jacket, using it as a brace for his palm as he pushed the needle in and out, criss-crossing his way through the tattered sails. He climbed as he went, dripping sweat in no time and exhausted beyond reason.

He worked his way back down the sail again, his stitches a mirror of the ones before, binding the torn pieces tighter together.

He sucked in a deep breath and looked to the other two rips that he'd not yet touched.

“Pirate.” Called a voice from below him.

He looked down to find Sephiroth standing there, watching him.

“You are tired,” the man called up. “Rest. What has befallen your friends will not change for an hour’s sleeping.”

“Do not taunt me,” Cloud requested, his brows twisting. “I am too tired to see through a trap.”

“No trap.” Sephiroth said. “Only water and food. I will not interfere with your side of the bargain.”

“What will I owe you for this?” Cloud asked. “I would sooner find my friends than ever eat again.”

“Not all things are deals.” Said Sephiroth, and turned to walk away.

Cloud watched him go. He hesitated a long time before climbing down, but his shaking hands left him no room to ignore his need to rest. He hit the deck just before Sephiroth vanished into the captain’s quarters.

“My apologies,” he rasped to Sephiroth's’ back. “For doubting your hospitality. You have my thanks.”

Sephiroth stood still a moment, his back turned. Then he glanced back, up at the sail.

“She looks better.” He said blandly. “You may yet make a ship of her again.”

Cloud ate and drank, but he did not go to sleep, despite Sephiroth’s assurances. He waited till his hands were only a little steadier, then climbed back to his work.

It made no difference to him, whether he would feel better with rest. Rest would not come, Not until his friends were safe and well.

Sephiroth did not appear again until then sun set. Then he appeared only below Cloud’s perch where he was just finally beginning to descend with the mirror to the second rip’s stitching. The diagonal cut in the sail had left it all but impossible to neatly sew.

Cloud looked down, startled by the company, but Sephiroth only walked around the ship, lighting oil lanterns. He did not lift a finger to help Cloud. But when he looked up, Cloud thought he saw something strange and hungry in his gaze.

He worked the night through. His world became the push and pull of the needle, the blisters on his fingers, the pain of the sewing, and his blood on the sails as he grew weaker and weaker.

But before the sun began to rise, he was stepping back, his hands bloody and trembling as he watched the sail shudder and bellow from port to starboard as the wind struck its full body for the first time in who knew how long.

“Rest.” Said Sephiroth’s voice from beside him, low and insistent.

“Sephiroth,” Cloud started, his voice all but gone from exhaustion and the burn of seawater.

“I will set our course,” Sephiroth said. “You must rest, pirate.”

Cloud could not have resisted if he wanted to. He slumped against the mast and fell fast asleep in the middle of the deck, only vaguely aware of Sephiroth’s black boots approaching him with heavy, even tread.

When Cloud woke up again there was fresh water and a wax-wrapped package of jerky. He drank first, before anything else, for even in his dreams he’d been in a desert sweating to death. He flinched as his hands stung, but he forced himself to his feet, taking the jerky with him back to the world of the vertical.

“Good morrow, Pirate.” Sephiroth said, and Cloud turned to find him behind the wheel, his eyes even and fixed on the horizon.

“You got us moving alone?” Cloud asked through a yawn, rubbing his eyes. He glanced up at the sail and froze.

The uneven stitching was gone. The sail was as whole as if it had never been ripped to shreds. But there were his bloodstains crisscrossing it, where he’d injured his hands patching what should have been scrapped or burned.

“What--” Cloud whispered around his confusion, his voice rasping.  
  
Had he had another sail? No, it would have taken a army to string. And there were the bloodstains, there on the white fabric…  
  
“What happened t--” he broke off, catching his breath as his head swam, “t’ the sail?”

“Don’t you remember?” Sephiroth asked. “You mended it last night.”

Cloud did not ask again.

He wandered the deck, looking over the stays, the sails, the mast, the woodwork. The silver he’d barely noticed glinting in the moonlight was more vibrant in the day, but not near enough to see what they were. The silver sea snakes coiled around the banisters, ornamenting the rivets of every railway and the mast as well. There was one coiled around the top peg of the wheel, he noted when he turned to watch Sephiroth navigate, his eyes even and uninterested.

He leaned out over the bow to try and get a look at her figure head, and saw a woman carved there, with metal covering half her face, those same snakes in her hair. She was rusted and worn with age, long past due for a cleaning. Stubborn barnacles had sprouted up along her arms and hair.

“Enjoying yourself?” Sephiroth asked, far too close to Cloud for how distant the wheel was.

Cloud jumped and whirled, staring at Sephiroth in alarm even as the man gave a low, pleased chuckle.

“What’s her name?” Cloud blurted. “Yer ship?”

“You’ll find nothing painted on her side,” Sephiroth said mildly, stroking a hand over a banister. “For her name sank long ago now.”

Cloud watched him. Watched his strange expression. That sad, relieved smile.

“Have you mop and bucket?” Cloud asked. “And rags for the rails?”

“What would you have of me in exchange?” Sephiroth asked.

“Perhaps I just want to see her gleam.” Cloud said softly.

“Then I shall bring rags for us both,” Sephiroth said. “For our course is locked on the tail of those you seek, and she will steer without me.”

When the sun began to set, the dark luster of the deck gleamed in the sunset. Silver snakes glinted across the ship. The one at the center of the ship's wheel gleaming as it turned itself gently, keeping a course with no hands on it at all.

Sephiroth had set to the work with more gusto than Cloud had expected of him, rolling up his broad and stylish coat sleeves and buckling down to it, till he was all grease and polish and tar. Eventually he’d taken his coat and shirt both off to hang on one of the mast's cleats.

Cloud tried not to stare to openly at his bare back as he worked the shine back into the wood and silver of the railing bit by bit.

When Cloud had started to sing while he mopped, Sephiroth had not joined in like his shipmates would have, but tilted his head into the song, and moved a little more easily as he worked, a smile that was less dangerous working its way onto his features.

As they stood at the end of the long day’s work, bodies aching, Cloud looked down at his hands, suddenly wondering why they didn’t ache. But they were whole, as if they’d never been torn open.

“Um.” Said Cloud.

“Perhaps I just want to see them whole.” Sephiroth said, looking over his ship. “Come, join me for dinner.”

Cloud followed him into the captain’s quarters with one last glance at the steering wheel, sparkling cheery as it corrected their coarse. He caught a glimpse of a rope tightening itself, adjusting the sail to better catch the wind.

Sephiroth poured them both mead in glasses too fine for Cloud’s blood. Cloud drank from his with gusto and not a trace of embarrassment. He was a pirate. He was used to taking things too good for him.

“Stolen?” He asked, lifting the glass in question.

“In a way,” Sephiroth said, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve not much but cured meats to offer I’m afraid.”

“No citrus? Limes?” Cloud asked with a lifted brow.

“They rotted long ago.” Sephiroth said.

Cloud didn’t ask again.

“Tell me,” Sephiroth said softly. “If Shinra captures you as well, what will you have done all of this for?”

Cloud watched him a moment before humming softly.

“My crew,” He said, “they’re the best of the best. Not as sailors, or fighters, perhaps. We’re a little ragtag for that, I suppose. But every one of them… Every one of them I’d lay my life down for. And I know they would as well.”

“You must have tales.” Sephiroth said.

“Many,” Cloud said, setting his cup down and tearing into a piece of meat. “None fit for polite company.”

Sephiroth stared evenly at him, then shifted his chair so he could prop his feet on the table, still holding his glass of mead. He lifted an eyebrow, and Cloud couldn’t help the laugh that burst from him, raucous and only a little desperate.

“Fine then!” He cried. “But remember ye’ve asked for it!”

He intended to only tell some foolish drivel they’d done. One of the bars where they’d played foolishly at cards until too late, where they’d commandeered the instruments of the bards performing to sing tunes that would have made their ancestors roll in their graves, if their ancestors hadn’t taught them in the first place.

He found himself talking about his friends more than he’d meant. Sephiroth was a silent but not an unappreciative audience. He nodded, smiled, listened intently.

And Cloud took care not to mention their names.

He trailed off into silence eventually, staring down at the table before him. Sephiroth watched a long moment before uncrossing his legs, leaning forward.

“What a terrible pirate you are,” He murmured, reaching out to touch Cloud’s chin lightly. “I thought your sort were supposed to be heartless.”

“Propaganda.” Cloud rasped, a half-smile on his face as he lifted his chin at the touch.

Sephiroth stared at him a long moment then stood, walking to the wall of the captain’s quarters where a host of silver snakes spilled down from the ceiling, framing the back of the captain’s chair at his desk.

“This ship was named once,” Sephiroth said. “They called her The Silver Demon.”

Cloud’s glass shattered when he dropped it, mead spilling on the floor.

“The sunken Shinra warship,” He whispered. “They say she drowned ten-thousand pirates.”

“An exaggeration.” Said Sephiroth.

“You?” Cloud whispered, standing, his chair scraping against the floor.

“Once.” Sephiroth said, his eyes empty.

Cloud hesitated. He should have attacked. Should have exacted vengeance. He’d heard of the bloodthirsty Silver General. Heard of her vile and vicious captain. But this man. This ship…

“She sank.” He said. “Her captain died. In the north.”

“No,” said Sephiroth. “Her captain made a deal.”

Cloud watched him. Watched his fingers trace over a map spread across the desk. It was all over covered in small marks. Smaller writing. As if he had been filling it in for many many years. He walked closer, looking upside down at the north of the map, where a woman with sea snakes for hair was drawn.

“With a sea snake?” Cloud whispered.

“He was slowly dying.” Sephiroth said, his head tilting. “The work was killing him. He was only alive while he was at sea. Only alive on her waves, breathing salt, weathering storms. But he could never stay. He was owned, and commanded. He was as much the warship as the General. And when they whistled him back to land, he crawled like a dog.”

“So he asked to stay at sea?” Cloud guessed softly.

“Yes,” Sephiroth said. “To sail always. For things to remain as they were, out on the ocean. For him to at last be free, hidden from Shinra’s eyes. He traded his soul for the gift, but even as he did he felt guilty for giving her the smaller end of the deal. For his soul had already been owned before, and at no gain to him.”

“And now you are trapped here?” Cloud asked.

“Trapped?” Sephiroth responded, lifting his eyes. “No. I have exactly what I wanted. I have sailed this ocean for twenty years, and nothing has changed. I have been alone, at last. Have had all the quiet I wished. Have seen things no man before me has been witness to. I do not for a moment regret my deal.”

Cloud looked at the map, at the writings on it, the drawings. There was a lifetime’s worth of knowledge piled into it. He glanced back to the table. Sephiroth hadn’t taken even a sip of his mead. And Cloud had yet to see him eat _anything_.

“Come,” Sephiroth whispered. “Let me show you one more thing this night.”

Walking below decks was like entering another world. Cloud froze, staring into the hold. It shimmered, glowing with gold, jewels, maps in careful rolls stacked along the walls, bottles of wine covered in dust. It was a gleaming, unspeakable sight.

“Go on.” Sephiroth said, nodding to his treasure trove when Cloud looked to him for permission.

“Ye GODS.” Cloud gasped, all but diving into the treasure, cupping gold in his hands and letting it spill through.

He caught up a string of pearls, sliding the strand through his hands in awe. Elegant pale hands reached around his shoulders, dropping the strand over his neck.

“Pirate.” Cloud accused, grinning.

“I was in need of a hobby,” Sephiroth commented, then smiled a wicked smile. “Look your fill. Wear what you will. You are my guest, after all.”

Cloud laughed again, despite himself, overwhelmed with the glory of the treasure. He went to the goblets, the cups, the wine bottles. He lifted rings and slid them onto his fingers. Nearby Sephiroth was fastening a new golden bead into his bangs, replacing the emerald he’d worn plainly there before.

“Are you human?” Cloud blurted, even as he cupped a handful of gold, wanting it close even though he couldn’t tear his eyes off Sephiroth.

Sephiroth looked over, a slow smile crossing his face. And Cloud knew he was not imagining the way his hair coiled around him as if tangling in the ocean rather than the air. Seasnake, he thought, and felt a wild grin cross his face.

Sephiroth’s expression changed. Darker, sharper, wanting.

“Come here.” He said, extending a hand to Cloud as he stepped through scattered coins and jewels. He pulled a cloth free from a gilded mirror, his hand still extended to Cloud. When Cloud took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled forward, it was not only Sephiroth’s fingers that wrapped around his hand, but that silver hair too.

“Look at yourself,” Sephiroth whispered, pulling Cloud forward till the man was in front of him. Cloud should have been afraid, he thought, as he felt Sephiroth’s body behind him. But he wasn’t. Not in the slightest. He followed Sephiroth’s instruction, looking into the gilded mirror. Sephiroth held onto his one hand, his other hand sliding up Cloud’s shirt, dragging up his body.

“The finery,” Sephiroth whispered. “The riches, the gold… It suits you so well.”

Cloud watched his face blush. Watched the dazed hungry smile cross his face as well. He lifted a handful of gold and turned his gaze towards Sephiroth, letting the man cup his chin with his long fingers. Cloud let the gold fall from his fingers between them, enjoying watching it spill through Sephiroth’s silver hair. The man’s smile got sharper at the touch, almost vicious in its delight.

“You are beautiful,” Sephiroth stared intently into the mirror, even as Cloud felt his strange, possessive, seasnake hair wrap around him, winding under his shirt, around his arms.

“So are you.” Cloud whispered, eyes on Sephiroth’s profile as the man watched him in the mirror.

“You could stay.” Sephiroth whispered, voice rough and low and wanting.

And Cloud wanted to. But instead he let the last of the gold fall through his fingers, turning back to the mirror, watching as Sephiroth’s expression slowly fell.

“You could come with us,” Cloud offered after a moment. “When we get the others.”

But Sephiroth was already shaking his head, his ferocious delight faded into a quieter smile. His hair fell back into a proper order at his back.

“We gain on your friends,” He said. “I will take you to arm yourself.”

“Sephiroth,” said Cloud softly. “I do not turn you down to slight you. My crew--”

“You are bound to them.” Sephiroth said, though he sounded weary. “I understand.”

His lips twitched back into a smile as he looked at Cloud though, and he reached out to tug on his earlobe lightly.

“This was treasure enough,” He said softly. “These days with you. I will keep them in their own way.”

Then he left Cloud in the treasure room, and did not even tell him not to take anything.

* * *

Tifa could see mist out the porthole. She was shuddering, cramped in the brig, torn and bruised and battered, but still breathing. They’d chain her to an oar again soon, but she’d won their wrath defending Yuffie, who’d been defending Vincent, who had gone all but dead in his shackles once again.

A fine mess we’re in, Tifa thought, fighting tears with pain as she bit her lip. A fine, fine mess.

That was when the cut-off scream caught her attention. In the wake of the sound the ship went utterly silent again, and for a moment she thought she’d been dreaming. Then there was a key in a the lock, scraping.

Tifa jumped to her feet, no weapon on her but the very chains they’d bound her in. And she was more than willing to use them.

But the ghost in the doorway was not Shinra. He looked up at her and delight blossomed on his face. She didn’t cry out his name, but she wanted to. She leapt forward soundlessly into his arms, and he caught her, holding her tight till she could wriggle her bound arms up and over his head to hold him back.

“You died,” She gasped, trembling. “You died, we saw your body.”

“Honestly, I don’t doubt it,” Cloud whispered. “But I’m here now. Where are the others? I have a way out of here for us, but it’s going to get messy. Soon.”

“Down below,” Tifa gasped. “Cloud, we’ve got to help them. Yuffie’s hurt, and Cid’s no better and Vincent…”

“We’re going right now,” Cloud said. “Can you fight with your hands tied?”

She only glared at him till he passed her over his sword and pulled a pistol from his belt. She didn’t ask where he’d gotten it from. When they snuck out onto decks she understood how he’d crept aboard unseen. The fog was impenetrably, impossibly thick. Cloud motioned for her to wait when they found the stairs. Then he pulled a can of oil from his pocket and slipped away from her. She held her ground, only hoping he knew what he was doing this time and would return to her.

There was no missing it when he set the oil ablaze. Shouts lifted from across the ship as light blossomed in the disorienting fog.

From somewhere nearby, a ship opened fire. Not, she thought with a shallow gasp, one of Shinra’s.

“Let’s go,” Cloud hissed, slipping past her down the stairs.

There were guards, but Cloud was free and unharmed, and Tifa was as vicious as a wildcat. Between one moment and the next they had turned the room packed with suffering and two armed guards into a room filled with shocked silence and two _dead_ guards.

“Cloud!” Yuffie cried aloud before clamping her hands over her mouth, looking pale and shaken.

“Highness,” Cloud said, moving over towards his friends quickly even as the other prisoners turned to stare. There had to be fifty of them, Cloud thought, shuddering. At least.

“What… What th’ hell?” Cid whispered roughly, staring just as Vincent did, all of them chained in place at the benches by the rough oars suspended from the ceiling, waiting to be used.

“Keys?” Cloud called to Tifa, extending his hand.

She threw him the guard’s ring, and he dropped to a knee before Vincent first, unlocking the chains that held his feet in place. The man gasped in a breath. His eyes were fixed and haunted, but he seemed to recognize Cloud, and that was enough for the moment.

In moments the three of them were free, and struggling with each other’s chains. Cloud passed the keys to the next prisoner.

“Who here can sail?” He called to the room, and a great many hands raised.

“Good.” Said Cloud as the cannon fire above grew in intensity, the screams of men rising in response. “This ship won’t sink, and it’s your ticket home. We just have to survive taking it over first. Those with weapons take the front, and every time we make a kill, one of you take their weapon. Let’s move!”

Cloud met the first man at the doorway as he sprinted down to find out why the prisoners weren’t rowing away. Cloud slit his throat with a dagger and Yuffie took his sword.

From there it was chaos. Above decks the fire had been smothered for the most part, but the whole crew was shouting, pointing. Cloud followed their eyes and grinned at the sight of Sephiroth’s ship clipping between the Shinra boats neatly. The sails snapped off the other Shinra ship. And then there were men upon them, and Cloud tore his eyes away to focus on the battle. On protecting his friends now that he had them back at his side.

It was hard work, fighting, and he knew at once that it was too much for his wounded, exhausted army. So he watched the fight for his chance, then took it when it came, launching himself up into the rigging like he'd seen Vincent do before.

“Sephiroth!” He called, his sword gleaming with blood.

The man straightened on the prow of the ghost ship, and something in his motion made everyone on Shinra's boat freeze in place, staring.

“You could hurry up." Sephiroth commented, his cheek still pressed against the rifle, he’d been sighting down.

“Ye got stronger when I gave ye gifts, right?” Cloud called back.

“Yes.” Said Sephiroth, curiosity crossing his face.

“What could ye do fer a place in my heart?” Cloud's pulse thundered under his skin as he yelled the offer.

“Not the whole thing?”

“That’s not only mine ta give." He shook his head. Extended his free hand. "But you can have a place inside it.”

“For how long?” The fight was starting up again below Cloud, but the sounds seemed distant. There was only Sephiroth's voice in the fog.

“Forever,” Cloud said, feeling suddenly that he didn't need to yell anymore. Sephiroth would hear him. “Long as it’s beatin’ an’ long after, when I’ve sunk to th’ ocean floor an’ calcified, there’ll still be that space for ye.”

“Well,” Sephiroth said softly, sounding a little breathless. “I think I can work with that.”

Cloud and the prisoners could only watch as the fog in the throats of their enemies condensed and drowned them where they stood. There was a great deal of screaming, but Cloud’s eyes were only for Sephiroth.

“Come about?” He slowly let his hand fall, a dazed smile on his face.

“Have them ready.” Sephiroth said.

Cloud jumped down from the rigging, dropping the stolen sword on the deck and grabbing Vincent’s arm, towing him away from the dead man who’s throat he’d slit through his terror. Vincent’s petrified expression split into a wild grin, and Cloud squeezed his wrist.

“Tifa!” he called, heading towards the gang plank swiftly in the chaos. "Yuffie, Cid, come on!"

He stopped just before the side of the boat, watching the ghost of the Silver General approach.

“Don’t give him your names,” He said firmly, turning to his beloved crew. “And be cautious what deals you accept. He’s a good enough man, I think, but not simple. Trust me, stick close, and we’ll be fine.”

“He did that,” Yuffie whispered, staring at the bodies on the deck. “He drowned every last one.”

“But only the Shinras,” Cid noted. “I like ‘im already.”

“No names.” Tifa agreed, shaking with tension.

And so they boarded Sephiroth’s ship, jumping across as he drew even, one by one, leaving behind them the sound of prisoners throwing their captor’s bodies overboard one by one.

* * *

The Silver General had never in any of her years of sailing known such joy as was aboard her in the days that followed. Cloud’s friends healed, hugged, laughed, and cried. There were songs, and dancing, and Sephiroth unearthed from his treasure trove instruments for them, and plenty of drink, and enough food to last, at least, though he often mentioned a wish that he could offer them more.

He stopped trying to make deals, to take names. He only smiled, and laughed, and shared stories of his own. He learned their songs, and taught his favorite knots. He spent long hours sitting on the boom with Vincent while the dark-haired man read Sephiroth’s notes and wrote back and forth with him. He endured Cid’s grumbling about the state of his ship, and allowed the man to neaten up his pulleys and the action of his wheel. He spoke with Yuffie in Wutaian, and shared captaining ideals with Tifa, arguing gamely. He did not know their names, but he made his own.

Tifa was ‘Captain,’ easily enough. And Yuffie ‘Songstress.’ Cid was ‘Old Man,’ much to his annoyance. Vincent became ‘My Friend.’

Cloud was always ‘Pirate.’

When they neared the dock, Sephiroth would go no further.

“Take the landing boat,” He said. “I have little need of it. I am perfectly happy and able to swim.”

“Would ya mind gettin’ her ready?” Cloud asked the others, turning towards them and smiling softly.

And bless them all, they understood.

Cloud stood before Sephiroth, staring up into his green eyes. He took a slow breath and let it out.

“It’s yours always,” He said softly, reaching out to take Sephiroth’s hand and resting it against his chest. “Whenever you want to seek me out to stay there a while.”

Sephiroth watched him, steady and silent, then he bent, pressing a soft salt-tinged kiss to Cloud’s lips.

“It is good you did not give me your name,” He whispered. “I’d have bound you to me to keep you from going now.”

Cloud took a shaking breath, holding Sephiroth’s hand to his chest.

“It’s Cloud,” He whispered, and felt the whole world still around him. “Cloud Strife.”

He felt the ship rock below him. The ropes creaked and groaned. Sephiroth’s hair shifted and curled around him, slowly, possessively. Cloud saw it in his eyes. He _wanted_.

“Would you bind me by it?” Cloud asked, his voice quiet as he looked up at Sephiroth’s face.

Sephiroth stared down at him. Hungry. Wanting. All but trembling with it. But he shook his head slowly. His hair released its grip, and the ropes and stays on the ship stopped whining under the force of his desire.

“No,” Sephiroth whispered. “No.”

“Then find me by it instead,” Cloud whispered, cupping Sephiroth’s cheeks. “I’ll watch for you on the ocean. Always.”

They kissed once more, and then once more again.

And when Cloud left with his crew, he insisted on being the one to row. First because that was too recent a pain for every one of them. But second…

Second because it let him keep his eyes on the gleaming dark ship that had once seemed to be beyond repair. He watched it till it faded out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Wolf AU


	6. Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuck downstairs cleaning up the training rooms, Cloud stumbles upon a dark company secret. Sephrioth has a hard time with change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may ask: "Boomchick. Did you change the name of this fanfiction?"
> 
> Yes. I did. Just a little tho...

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

There were few punishments at Shinra worse than ‘Downstairs Cleanup.’ It wasn’t a blatant punishment, sure. It just needed doing, that was all. Simple part of being a team player. Proving your mettle and worth outside of battle as well as in. Pulling your weight.

What a load of bullshit, Cloud thought sourly to himself, using his push-broom to shove the remaining hunks of monster bodies onto the tarp he’d taped down to the lab floor. It was punishment plain and simple, and couching it in any other terms just made it all the more humiliating and all the more impossible to push back on.

“Be a team player, Strife,” he muttered, voice pitched nasal and a scowl fixed on his face as he mocked his commander. “Clean up our messes for us, it totally counts as training.”

He gave a particularly ferocious push, shoving the considerable pile of monster guts fully on to the tarp before turning and storming back to the top of the room, starting over from there. It left blood painted in his wake, but better to get all the chunks up first and then handle the mopping he’d found.

He hated that he knew that now. They’d made a janitor out of him rather than a Soldier. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering to hold out hope anymore. It had been going on for months. He was up all night scrubbing the damn labs for them, and too exhausted in the day to keep up with the other troopers.

He’d have given up and let his fury loose already except that somehow, for some reason, his very reason for being at Shinra in the first place had shown his face not once, not even twice, but three times while he’d been cleaning the labs in the middle of the night.

Sephiroth himself, Cloud thought, pausing and looking to the door hopefully. Sephiroth, in the flesh. And it should have been mortifying to be seen like this, gross and sweaty and cleaning up training rooms that Soldiers spent all day tearing up. Sephiroth probably recognized some of the messes in them. He’d probably been doing something awesome in the same place Cloud was standing now.

The first time Cloud had nearly cried, in all honesty. Standing there ashamed and exhausted when he caught Sephiroth’s eye in the doorway. But Sephiroth had looked to his work and nodded.

“Thorough,” He’d said in approval, looking to Cloud with a small, approving smile. And however full of shit his commander was, Cloud felt certain that Sephiroth wasn’t.

“Thank you sir.” He’d whispered, a beat too late, as Sephiroth walked past.

The second time, Sephiroth had given him the tarp idea. Cloud hadn’t noticed him in the doorway, he was so busy shoving bits of monster into a biohazard bag as if he wasn’t getting the blood all over himself doing it.

“Much though I admire the efforts you are taking,” Sephiroth had said from the door. “I think perhaps you could work smarter rather than harder.

Sephiroth gestured for Cloud to follow him, and Cloud had followed, awestruck and blushing, ignoring his aching back.

Sephiroth showed him to a door down the hall and pulled it open for him, revealing a cleaning supply closet twice the size of the one Cloud had been pulling from.

“Feel free to use the tools here,” Sephiroth said, glancing down at him with a small, knowing smile. “Though I wouldn’t suggest exploring further.”

Cloud had managed to say thank you before he left that time, and was treated to Sephiroth’s stately nod of acceptance.

The third time, Sephiroth had seen him taping down the tarp and had hummed his approval.

“Clever.” He’d said, and Cloud still had that assessment ringing in his head. He thought of it almost as often as he got called shrimpy and weak. Sephiroth had called him clever, and that was enough for him to stay on at Shinra another month.

But there had been no sign of Sephiroth tonight, so the chore had become just a chore. Cloud huffed out a breath, only barely remembering not to wipe his hand over his face to get some of his sweat off.

By the time he’d peeled the tarp up, dragging the offal to the designated incinerator chute, it had already been an hour of work. He sighed, looking over to the mop he’d been using for the past month. He was pretty sure that the mop head used to be white, but it was an awful blackish brown now, and he doubted it had enough cleanliness left in or on it to be any good.

“Supply run,” Cloud sang to himself, grabbing the mop. He cracked it in half over his knee, the sharp, violent motion deeply satisfying. He tossed the pieces down the chute too, and smiled to think of it burning.

His boots were sticky with blood, so he took them off just inside the pneumatic door of the training room, stepping outside into the pristine hallway in only his socks. It made his footsteps all but silent as he wandered through the emergency-lit hall, enjoying the quiet and the silence.

He’d always kind of liked this aspect of Shinra. It was so different from home. Nibelheim, where things were quiet all the time, but not this kind of quiet. Not the hum of a distant generator, and the muted way sound carried in the halls. Not dim fluorescent lights in silver halls. It was strange, and a little bit eerie, and Cloud liked it.

Or at least, he liked it right up until that dim and distant machinery sound became less dim, less distant, and less mechanical-sounding.

Ah, thought the part of Cloud’s brain that was still very much a country boy. That is the sound of something that we are afraid of, and we should go.

Absolutely not, thought the part of Cloud’s brain that didn’t want Sephiroth to find out this his favorite (he hoped) lab cleaning trooper had skimped on the job.

So he pushed past his unease and continued to the closet he’d been shown, humming quietly and uneasily to himself in a paltry display of bravery. He pulled open the closet, slipping inside and pulling out a significantly sleeker and more modern mop. If he was going to do the dirty work they could shell out for the good equipment for him.

He threw the mop over his shoulder and turned to leave, drawing the door closed behind him, when the sound shuddered through the hall again, making him freeze, hefting the mop like a weapon. There was no mistaking the growl for anything else. It was close, and low and grating and—

And it shattered into a ragged, human cough.

Cloud stood there, his mop hefted like a bat over his shoulder.

“Um,” He said, articulately. “Hello?”

Silence was his answer. But now… Well, now he was curious. Not stupid, but curious. He kept the mop hefted, ready to shove it between himself and any teeth he might encounter, or crack any lurking scientists on the head.

On second thought, he decided he’d better avoid that if possible. He switched his grip on the mop so its floppy white head was pointed outwards, between him and the hallway.

“Is, uh,” he started. “Someone down here? Because I’m pretty sure the labs are, um… Supposed to be off limits except for, uh, janitorial staff? Not that I’m— That is— Ugh, this is stupid.” Cloud muttered to himself, letting his mop drop. “Nice, Cloud. Now you’re wandering around talking to yourself instead of getting cleaning done. Wow. Inspirational. Hero material.”

He turned to walk back towards the training room when the growl answered his words again. And this time it deepened, roughened. Cloud whirled, mop held at the ready. He slowly moved towards the sound, eyes darling around the hallway. The locked door on his right seemed like the most likely culprit, from the sound, and Cloud warred between caution and curiosity. And then there was the gasping cough again. The sound of someone struggling to breathe.

Cloud pulled out the janitorial keycard and swiped it before he could think clearly about the instinct.

The coughing figure was immediately evident. Silver hair and bunched shoulders and a muffled, wracking cough. His hands were at his mouth from what Cloud could see in the instant of recognition and fear. He gasped at the sight of Sephiroth there, and turned to look for the enemy.

Even though it was only a glance, around, it was more than long enough for Sephiroth to be upon him. And Cloud knew in an instant he’d misread the situation entirely. He didn’t think anything nearly so clearly put, though. He only had time to think ‘oh fuck.’

The man pinning him down was wild-eyed and snarling, his lips pulled so far they stretched, the corners bunched in fury. A dark muzzle was caging his face, and pointed ears rose from his head, pinned back in aggression. Cloud didn’t waste breath screaming. He got a hand between himself and the figure above him, struggling to press him back and away, even as the man above him gave an inhuman snarl.

All at once he was released, scrambling backwards, gasping for breath. The door slid the rest of the way shut behind him, leaving him trapped in the room with Sephiroth, and his black suit, shining with Mako power, and the black muzzle over his face, which even as Cloud watched he tangled his fingers in and struggled against, thrashing his head, snarling and growling. Cloud pressed further back against the wall, trying to be as small and quiet as possible as he watched.

The man dropped his back against the far wall, still tugging at the muzzle with clawed fingers, struggling to catch his breath. Cloud stared, wide eyed, as Sephiroth’s wild gaze fixed on him again.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sephiroth rasped, his voice still carrying the furious growl in his throat. Cloud watched a glimpse of a silver tail wave behind him before tucking hard against his inner thigh, defensively. Sephiroth’s ears flicked forward towards him then back again, and Cloud caught a flash of some sort of earring on one of his inhuman ears.

“You, sir, you, I--” Cloud stammered, staring at Sephiroth as the man twitched and jerked, leaning back against the far wall, pulling at the muzzle every few seconds as if he had no control over the motion.

“Get out.” Sephiroth growled.

“Sir are you hurt?” Cloud finally managed to blurt, trying to get to his feet.

“OUT, trooper!” Sephiroth roared, his lips pulled back in fury once more and his wild eyes blazing.

Cloud bolted to his feet, almost jerking out the door on autopilot before he paused, keycard in his pocket, closed door in front of him and Sephiroth’s labored breathing behind him.

“Technically,” He said after a moment. “I’m doing a janitorial duty right now. So… Less trooper, more custodian.”

Sephiroth was staring at him when he turned around, his ears pinned again and a look like desperation in his face.

“What’s happening to you?” Cloud forced himself to ask. “What can I do?”

“Deployment tomorrow,” Sephiroth responded, staring at Cloud as if utterly flummoxed by his still standing there. “The programming takes time.”

“Programming?” Cloud asked.

Sephiroth’s ear twitched, and Cloud’s eye was drawn to the earring. It looked less like an earring now that he could see it, and a lot more like a tracker.

“Shinra did this to you?” Cloud asked in slow horror. “This wasn’t an attack?”

“Out.” Sephiroth repeated, roughly, though he was sliding down the wall behind him. His hands slid down from the muzzle, tugging at the thick metal of the collar resting heavy over his shoulders, thick and heavy but seeming too loose for comfort if anything.

Cloud stared at him a moment, felt himself start forwards twice and catch himself. Sephiroth was growling again, clawing at the collar in frustration.

“What happens when the programming kicks in?” Cloud asked, his voice shaking.

“I lose my mind and do what they want,” Sephiroth growled. “Like a good dog.”

Cloud watched the man slumped there in exhaustion, struggling in vain against his bonds. He left the keycard into his pocket and pressed against the door, fruitlessly.

“I’m locked in.” He lied, catching Sephiroth's eye when his head jerked up to stare at him.

“Locked… No.” Sephiroth said. “No, no, no, you cannot be here. I am only going to get less and less—”

He jerked, twitched, snarled. The snarl caught in his throat and dragged one of those hacking coughs from him. One of his fingers tangled in the metal of the muzzle, and Cloud suddenly wondered exactly how much of a dog he was going to become.

Only the word ‘dog’ wasn’t really what came to mind.

“I,” Cloud started, his voice shaking. “I could help you?”

Sephiroth laughed, abrupt and sharp, his teeth bared and sharp and wow, wow, wow, Cloud thought, those were NOT your standard human teeth.

“If it were so easy,” he snarled. “I’d have broken it myself.”

“I have the added advantage of not having to work on my own face.” Cloud offered, adding quickly. “Uh, sir.”

Sephiroth bared his teeth to respond, then cut off with what sounded like a stifled yelp. He twitched, jerked, shuddered. Cloud watched the mako in the uniform he wore flare. The man clenched his eyes shut, his whole body trembling as he slammed his head back into the wall once, twice, a third time. Cloud launched forward before he could think about it to stop him.

He only felt the pain a moment later, and by then his hands were already on the back of Sephiroth’s head, keeping him from hurting himself again. He could have broken his hands, he realized. He was a Soldier–THE Soldier–and Cloud was just a no-one.

But Sephiroth didn’t slam his head back again. He was staring at Cloud, his breath coming in ragged pants through his parted lips. His eyes were wild and wired, burning with effort. But his ears flicked forward at Cloud’s touch and proximity.

Cloud’s cheek was burning in pain, and he felt hot blood trickle down the side of his face.

“I,” Sephiroth started, ragged and worn.

“It’s okay,” Cloud said quickly. “It’s okay. That was my fault. I shouldn’t have run up on you while you were, um, in.. in pain. Are you…?”

“Fine,” Sephiroth rasped, slumping against the wall, looking anything but. Sweat was beaded on his face, and the tail--it was definitely a tail--flowed out from behind him. His right ear twitched over and over, perked forward a little more, but unable to hold still with the heavy tracker pierced through it. “I’m fine.”

“Can I look?” Cloud asked.

Sephiroth stared up at him, then slowly tilted his head back.

“Hurry,” He said softly.

Cloud obeyed.

He dropped down next to him quickly, his fingertips sliding over the collar as he searched for a catch, for a secret. He found a panel in the side and dug in his fingernail. An old farm hand trick that would have worked better with a stiffer resistance. He pushed his hand behind the collar as well before he could think better of it, and shuddered at the warning growl Sephiroth gave below him. The man shuddered, but stayed in place, his hands pressed down to the floor at both sides.

“Just a second,” Cloud muttered, glaring at the dark metal as he dug at the screws embedded there. They were flat-head, sleek and smooth and modern. And then they were on the floor, and Cloud was opening the collar.

He looked at the wires inside, at the mako glow of Sephiroth’s suit.

“Electromagnetic?” He guessed.

“And powering the process.” Sephiroth rasped. “Can you disable it?”

“Maybe.” Cloud muttered.

“Try,” Sephiroth gasped. “I’m safe enough once it’s over but in the middle the… The w…” He lurched, his chest heaving with a breath, his head falling backward as some unseen force rocked him. “The wolf is terrified. It will destroy…”

“Got it, hold on, let me see what I can find,” Cloud said, pulling away from Sephiroth and looking around the room feverishly. It was sparsely furnished. The only thing that even had HOPE of being useful was one low steel crate and Cloud didn’t even know how to BEGIN to get it open.

“Okay,” Cloud muttered. “Okay, hold on just a second.”

He pulled out the keycard and swiped it, slipping out of the room before he could think better of the move. He sprinted down to the supply closet, hunting through the little toolbox he’d found until he found a pair of wire clippers. He nodded to himself and sprinted back to the room. He found Sephiroth standing, staring at the door with a look of utter disbelief on his face.

“Little liar.” He commented, sounding more like himself than he had since Cloud entered the room.

“It’s Cloud, actually,” Cloud said, waving. “You said my cleaning was clever once.”

“More than can be said for you, it seems. I will kill you if I change, Cloud.”

“Cool, how long do I have?”

“Not,” Sephiroth twitched. Jerked. Cloud felt his levity vanish as the man let out a low moan, his hands lifting helpless to his face, struggling with the muzzle that bound him. His eyes closed, his shoulders hunched, and Cloud watched him suffer. Watched the fingernails claw, his ears twitch and pin back. Heard him whine, high, the sound trapped in his throat.

“Not long,” He managed to gasp, his claws tightening in the muzzle. “You must go.”

“They do this to you,” Cloud whispered. “To _you_. I was already going to leave because of the janitorial duty but this is..:”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Sephiroth gasped. “I’ve tried. There’s nothing to be done.”

He looked so sad. So tired, there in his muzzle and his collar and his tracking earring.

“Let me try?” Cloud asked.

“It’s getting bad,” Sephiroth whispered. “If you’re that close…”

“It’ll be okay,” Cloud said firmly. “The sooner I start the sooner we’ll be done, right?”

The suit buzzed to life again, and Cloud almost forgot himself and moved forward again when Sephiroth crashed to his knees, leaning forward against the metal crate to steady himself as his back hunched, as he twisted. Cloud saw his eyes changing. Shifting, his hair spilling heavy around him and his tail tightly tucked.

Cloud waited until Sephiroth was catching his breath, coughing behind his muzzle. Then he moved forward swiftly and ducked under Sephiroth’s arm.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth rasped.

“Just stay right there.” Cloud said.

“Go.” Sephiroth rasped.

“It won’t take long.” Cloud promised, prying his fingers inside the collar.

“I don’t want to kill you.” Sephiroth ground through his teeth.

Cloud looked up at his face, and felt his stomach drop. The man looked like he was in agony, his jaw clenched and his lips pulled back in a snarl. His brows were knit intensely, and beside Cloud’s head, he heard the scrape of his claws digging into the metal.

“You won’t.” Cloud whispered, though his voice was shaking. He fumbled his way back into motion, struggling to orient himself to the wires inside the collar. “You won’t, you’re Sephiroth. You can do anything.”

Sephiroth didn’t laugh or scold. He only groaned in pain. Cloud could hear him grinding his teeth. Could hear the shrieking progress of his nails on metal.

He stared down at the colored strands of the collar, feeling lost.

“Please.” Sephiroth whispered.

Cloud felt a desperate tear slide down his cheek, the salt stinging the cuts on his cheek.

“I really really hope this doesn’t hurt you,” Cloud said, and clipped every wire he could.

The effect was immediate, the man yanking away from him with a scream. He roared, tearing at the collar, the muzzle, the mako-lined clothes. He jerked and shuddered as whatever was in the collar that drove him mad coursed through him. And then, as suddenly as it had gone to hell, the collar fell away, clattering in two pieces to the ground.

Cloud shivered on the floor, staring up at him with tears standing in his eyes, watching as the man pressed his clawed hands to his throat, feeling the space where the collar had been.

Cloud dropped his head back against the crate, just breathing for a long moment through the terror. He lifted his head at a clatter of metal, and looked up to find Sephiroth’s ear torn and bleeding where he’d yanked the tracker out. His green eyes turned to Cloud, suddenly clear once more. He stalked the two paces over and dropped to a knee before him. Then he lowered his head. Cloud blinked at him, confused by the impromptu bow. Then he saw the fastenings of the muzzle, buckled too-tight behind Sephiroth’s head.

He reached out, fumbling with them, even as Sephiroth breathed and breathed again, deeper and broader as Cloud got the muzzle closer and closer to freedom.

“You realize,” Sephiroth gasped. “We’re traitors now.”

“Eh,” Cloud said softly. “I was only here to meet you anyhow.”

“Ah,” Sephiroth said with an exhausted, strained laugh.

Cloud pulled the muzzle free, and Sephiroth slowly straightened out of it. The ears didn't vanish. Nor did his teeth, or claws, or tail. But his smile was strange and gentle as he squinted at Cloud through exhausted eyes.

“Then I must say,” He said with a trace of good humor. “It is very good to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: NieR: Automata AU


	7. A NieR: Automata Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yorha android S1 has been assigned to protect the rebellion camp on Earth's surface, and quickly finds himself... Distracted. Cloud is not important to Yorha's mission. To the rebellion. To the future of humanity. But... He's becoming important to S1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No big spoilers for NieR: Automata below! Just a little love story in a world of androids. If you haven't played N:A ~~you should~~ this story will still make plenty of sense! Just remember: 
> 
> Yorha = Elite fighting force of androids based on a satellite in space  
> and  
> Rebellion = Androids still living on Earth's surface despite the danger of Machines

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

There was one mote of dust brighter than the others, drifting in the sunbeam, leisurely and soft. S1 stood nearby, not watching avidly, but aware. He had noticed it, and had found himself waiting with it. Standing in the shaft of sunlight streaming down through the ancient trees, cracking through human history, watching that singular dust speck fall.

The machines found him there before he could see it reach the end of its journey. They were simple to destroy. Only a small group of aggressive stubbies. But their motion stirred up a thousand more pieces of dust. S1 stood only a moment after the battle ended, watching the senseless patterns slowly settling from where his motion had disrupted them. He would never see that particularly bright one again.

He walked away from the swirling dust, leaving it churning behind him.

He stepped out from between the towering buildings, into the sunny clearing before the rebel camp. It was a wide, flooded area. A rushing waterfall cascaded from broken pipes and yellow-eyed, wandering machines stumbled through the shallow water.

S1 took an extra moment to cut them all down, one by one, gathering their pieces to exchange with the makers, the fixers, the shopkeepers who made up the crackling energy core of the resistance. His pod chimed twice, patching through a connection as S1 stepped back from the crumbling pieces of the medium biped machine, watching it crack and fray, and waiting for his analytics to identify any important items.

“Unit S1, report!” snapped Operator 41O. S1 had been informed by the other Yorha that he was a particularly harsh operator, but he had no basis for comparison. They had been partnered together since S1 was first commissioned.

“Operator,” he said, stooping to retrieve a broken circuit that still looked to have some usable parts. “Approaching resistance camp now.”

“Well hurry it up!” The Operator snapped. “Your mission is crucial to Yorha’s success. Stop poking around and do what you were made for!”

S1 stood slowly, glancing to the pod as the line disconnected.

“Pod, please inform me of incoming calls from command verbally,” he said.

“Request acknowledged.” Pod replied, programmed voice chipper and bright.

S1 watched his pod a moment longer, wondering not for the first time exactly how much his assistant knew and understood.

He turned and tilted forward, engaging his dash to blur up the incline to the resistance camp, the wind whipping at his hair, and the water parting in a rush under his boots. Sometimes, on earth, it was easy to forget. Sometimes, on earth…

The camp had grown since last he was there. Not by a great deal, but the changes still caught his attention. The woman who had been trying to repair a human invention called ‘jukebox’ was standing beside it, her head tilting, as an airy tune filled the camp, overlaid by the quiet murmur of the other androids going about their days in relative peace.

There were new flowers planted in the camp’s center. The last time S1 had been there, they were still repairing the flower patch. He’d delivered the news of a comrades death, and they could all only watch as the one he’d told pulled out his own core and destroyed himself.

S1 had stood there a long while, looking down at the burned and wilted remains of the flowers then. Now he spared them a moment, admiring their shining petals. What any member of the science department would have given to see them growing like this.

Some days, he envied the resistance.

He approached the camp leader, who was deep in conversation with an android S1 didn’t know. He had a machine gun fused to one arm, and S1’s pod pinged in his ear.

“Analysis,” it said. “An inadvisable augmentation. May lead to corruption in Android thought processes.”

“I was not considering getting one.” S1 replied to his pod in an annoyed mutter. Pod bumped against his shoulder, and S1 wasn’t sure if it was intentional or just the pod’s occasionally haphazard flying patterns.

He could have requested a new one, or an upgrade, but…

“Ma’am.” He said, and stood back, waiting to be acknowledged.

The man with the Machine gun for an arm turned to him, eyeing him up and down suspiciously. But the camp leader smiled, gracious and easy going as ever. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, her cloak draped neatly over her right shoulder, covering the rough worker’s clothes she wore.

“Unit S1,” she said. “It has been some time. It’s good to have you back. This is Barret, head of our defense team. He was just catching me up on some of our new outposts. I’m sure he’ll catch you up later, if you’re going to be staying a little while?”

“My mission currently is to assist your efforts.” S1 said, feet shoulder-width, standing still and patient. He missed the feel of his blades hanging at his back, but he always banished them in town. They made people uneasy, and while it was easy to carry his Odachi program out in the field, the size of the weapon made it impractical in close quarters. Still, he’d adjusted to his secondary weapon set, and he would draw his katana and glaive if needed.

“Then for a little while at least.” She said warmly. He was trying to find her name in his memory banks, but there was a glitch of some kind, skipping him around it. When he reached for it, his files only supplied him with the image of burning flowers.

“Make yourself at home,” She said, gesturing. “And find Barret when you’re ready to start, alright? Make sure you’ve resupplied. I know we have access to a few things here that are harder to get back on Yorha’s base.”

“Understood,” S1 said, turning away from her to walk towards the new awning that he’d noticed, spying a hooded android working on what looked like a sword there. If there were new weapons to be had, he would at the least check them by his own equipment and make his decision from there.

He stepped neatly on the plank bridging the gap between one side of the flower bed and the other rather than crushing the soft flowers under his boots. It cost an extra half-step of motion, he noted, but it seemed worth it. He couldn’t have told his Operator why it was worth the effort, but it was. He walked closer, drawing the attention of the android under the awning, sitting cross-legged in the dirt. The figure grinned at him, pulling his goggles off and placing them on his forehead.

“Hi.” He greeted. His smile was not quite perfect, S1 noted. It opened more one one side than the other, tilted towards his left. But it was wide, and warm. S1’s pod bumped him, and he internally wondered about his propensity to find small glitches endearing. “Looking to get some weapons?”

“Perhaps.” S1 replied, scanning the wares the vendor had on sale.

“You’re that new Yorha unit, right?” The android leaned forward, head tilted up to get a better look at S1. “Wow… I don’t think I’ve seen one of you before. Are you all, um…”

S1 glanced up at him to see him fidgeting and awkward. He glanced down at himself, at his black velvet gloves, and his smooth leather jacket, synthetic feathers making a cuff around his wrist. He looked back to the android before him in his sand-guarding cape and his rough craftsman’s attire.

“We’re designed to be striking.” S1 said with a flat note in his voice. “So if you had seen one of us before, you would remember.”

“Ah, maybe not.” The weapon’s dealer said, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his head. “My memory circuits got fried a while ago. When I first showed up here I didn’t know which way was up. Tifa got me back on my feet again and set me up here making weapons.”

Tifa. S1 scanned his files. Ah, the one who would fuse chips and augment his pod with new systems.

“I see,” S1 returned his eyes to the weapons, but he noticed the android shrinking somewhat at the reply, and despite himself he added “I am Yorha Unit S1. This is Pod 261.”

“Affirmative!” Agreed Pd 261, though its input was not required.

“Hey little guy,” said the shopkeeper, waving a hand at the pod as it floated and bobbed, that mismatched grin returning full-force. “I’m Cloud.”

“Cloud,” said S1. “Your weapons are well crafted. Or restored?”

“Some of both,” Cloud agreed. “I’d love to make more, but materials have been a little hard to come by. I’ve been wanting to head out of town to see if I can find more parts. There are some machines in the desert who I’ve been dying to get pieces from.”

“You are not a combat unit,” S1 commented, looking Cloud over. “You would likely be harmed.”

“I guess,” Cloud said, leaning back. “But one day I’ll get myself upgraded enough to go out in the field. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great here. The machine’s don’t bother us, and we’re doing real good for the android resistance. But…”

“Proposal,” chirped Pod 261. “Unit Cloud would be safe in company of advanced combat model!”

“Huh?” said Cloud, looking at the pod again.

“Proposal!” Pod added. “Unit S1 should accompany Cloud for item gathering missions!”

“You’re a friendly little thing, aren’t you?” Cloud asked, lifting a hand.

S1’s pod hovered closer, and Cloud rubbed the little robot's central processing unit, grinning as the pod lifted away with a twirl.

“Affinity level increased with unit Cloud.” Pod 261 proclaimed.

“You too, 261.” Cloud said warmly. “But I think your boss has better things to do than—”

“My mission is to protect the rebellion.” S1 interrupted. “But I will not always have missions. And I am sure that having a well-supplied weapons trader would lend itself well to my assigned protection.”

He watched Cloud process the information. Then he watched him light up, standing to grin at S1 in delight.

It was only later, while S1 went to meet with the one called Barret, one of Cloud’s refurbished machine swords strapped to his back, that Pod 261 commented.

“Affinity level with S1 increased.” It commented.

“Oh?” S1 asked.

“Error,” said Pod 261. “Affinity levels already at maximum.”

For the first time in a long time, S1 smiled.

* * *

Missions with Barret were successful. For the most part. Once S1 saw them getting overwhelmed and activated his berserker failsafe, only to nearly destroy Barret as well, mistaking his machine gun arm’s bullets for those from their enemy.

He had been more careful after that, and to Barret’s credit he had not asked for a replacement, or even mentioned it after the initial tirade. S1 had taken extra care to watch his back as well. He found he didn’t want to be reassigned…

As successful as his missions with Barret and the defense team were, his missions with Cloud were something else. They were…

They were the way the sun glinted on very tops of the enormous trees at sunrise, and swept down them in a steady burn like fire. They were the feeling of fresh wind on his face after an eternity of stagnant air on the base. They were the soft sound of grazing animals which no longer ran from him with the new sachet he carried. They were Pod spinning in the air playfully, and the music of Cloud’s laughter.

S1 thought they were wonderful.

They did not always find what Cloud was looking for, but they always found something. Found Machines looking to have a race rather than do battle, Yorha agents inspecting an oasis of oil in the desert, found flowers that glowed like the moon.

And every time Cloud found something, he would murmur ‘S1, look.’

Pod tried to run identities for every little thing they found, no matter how insignificant.

It identified lipstick at the abandoned shopping facility, and playfully suggested that cloud try it to see if it really had the properties humans claimed it had. S1 had insisted that he saw no difference and that humans must have been wrong, but internally he found the images of Cloud with darkened lips fixated upon by his memory banks.

It informed them on the purpose of a lottery after they found a discarded ticket, and they sat together wondering over the little curiosity left behind by their creators, neither one able to decide why someone would buy the possibility of perhaps having something else.

They also ran into danger, just as S1 had feared. The first two outings, he dispatched every machine they came across. On the third, Cloud had caught his arm as they left the resistance camp.

“These ones never do any harm,” Cloud had said, sounding anxious and a little upset. “Can’t we leave them alone?”

And S1 shouldn’t have. He was Yorha. The machines were their enemies. The enemies of all androids.

But it had been Cloud who asked. So he left his sword on his back, and felt the shadow of the machines watching them as they walked right by, even though no single one of them paid them any mind.

“If you wish me to spare the machines we can,” S1 said. “Let me give you a combat chip of your own. If you can defend yourself, there will be no need to destroy every potential threat.”

He watched Cloud catalog his current augmentations, and relaxed when he nodded his approval. Pod 261 floated closer, offering S1 his current selection of non-equipped chips.

“I’ve got about...” Cloud pulled a chip out, slipping it into his pocket. “Thirteen slots open now. Will that do?”

“Yes,” Said S1, selecting two chips and gently taking Cloud’s arm. “These should be a decent start.”

“Um, I could…" Cloud started, but S1 was already gently sliding in the first chip, slotting it into place.

“Tell me if there’s any trouble with your internal systems accepting them,” S1 said. “They are supposed to be broadly compatible, but—”

“It feels fine,” Cloud said, though he was looking upwards, his crooked smile sweet and pleased.

S1 hummed and inserted the second chip, raising cloud’s defense capabilities by at least double what they had been. He was particularly good at chip synthesis, but he rarely left much room for defense in his own systems.

He let Cloud try taking out the next round of Small Stubbies himself, and smiled to see the weapon’s maker wielding one of his own pieces against the machines.

“Thank you.” Cloud said, breathlessly, when S1 walked up to his side, stooping to pick up a few wires that would be of use.

“You will be much safer now, but do not go out without an escort,” S1 instructed.

“Oh,” Cloud blinked. “No, of… Of course not. You’ll… That is, you’ll still come, won’t you?”

S1 blinked at his worry, then felt himself smile.

“I did not give you that to replace me.” He said mildly.

“Good,” Cloud whispered. “Because I was just happy that I might be able to protect you now.”

* * *

It was inevitable that S1 would die in the field. It was part of Yorha life. Die on the field, rebuild on the bunker from a backup, return to face your foe and retrieve your assets. He’d been dreading it, and continued to dread it as the great beast of a machine skewered him on its metal tusk.

“Get back!” he roared to Barret and the other Resistance fighters. There were no backups for them. No bunker to rebuild them. He needed them to get at least 100 feet of distance before he set off his berserker’s self destruction mode. There wasn’t an option. The thing was just too strong for him. But now that it had been fool enough to impale him he could hang on. Could stay close enough to its face that when the reaction went off it would take them both.

“Pod, get clear!” He yelled when he saw the helpful device floating nearer.

He felt a surge of fear as he thought of Yorha viewing his data for backup. As he thought of what his Operator might pick out of the moments he hadn’t been watching. What they might find looking at his thoughts.

“Memory bank firewall erected.” Said pod’s voice through their link.

S1 didn’t have time to thank him. The boar machine was bucking, thrashing, trying to free him from its tusk as it realized that he was heating up. S1 gripped onto its mechanics, letting its wild thrashings crush his fingers and dig the hole in his core ever deeper.

When he finally reached the point of self destruction, he had only a final impression of the boar machine screaming, and an intense burst of miserable heat.

He returned within a day or two, and when he did he found a furious Cloud waiting for him, tears standing in his eyes. S1 never understood that design. Why had they been programmed to cry? What possible purpose could it serve?

And yet Cloud was there, crying, so S1 opened his arms, cautiously, and let Cloud fling himself forward, pressing against his chest, crying into the stiff leather of S1’s Yorha uniform.

“If you were a resistance fighter you’d be dead,” Cloud choked through the tears. “You’d be gone.”

“But I’m not,” S1 said softly. “I’m not.”

If I was, he thought with a flash of hot misery, I would never have to leave.

Barret told him later that Cloud had screamed when they told him. Had screamed at them for leaving his body behind, had screamed in loss and fear. No amount of being told that S1 was Yorha, that they would rebuild him, had settled him.

S1 found himself dreaming that night. A rare and dangerous pursuit for androids. His mental connections were linking together, until his dreams presented him with an internally manufactured vision of his worst fear.

The scene from all those years ago, the android dying on the flowers, but Cloud’s face, Cloud’s face, and S1′s death that made him pull out his core.

* * *

Cloud had seen glimpses of the great forest, he told S1. There were vicious machines there, deadly forces, but potentially materials they couldn’t have hoped to retrieve from the desert. S1 believed him on all counts, and wanted to take him there. It just was never safe enough. Never the right time. Cloud seemed appeased by searching the ruins of the ‘apartment complex’ in the desert, fascinated and concerned by the sameness of the small unit spaces.

“Stacked up on top of each other like this,” He’d muttered. “I guess it’s efficient? But it’s strange for humans to do this one thing efficiently when everything else we know about them is so… I don’t suppose you could ask the Council of Humanity?”

“It’s a one-way channel,” S1 said. “I am assured they are working to catalog all the information about early humans, but if they answered every one of our questions they would never rest.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Cloud laughed, and looked back down to the crumbling book in his hands with a sad smile.

“He seems sad,” S1 mentioned to Pod 261 that night. “Proposal?”

“Proposal,” Pod 261 said. “Unit Cloud is attached to Unit S1 and fears for his safety.”

“And a course of action?”

“Proposal,” said pod 261. “Distraction.”

“Yes. Perhaps time for that forest trip…”

“Secondary proposal,” said Pod 261. “Attempt not to die.”

The pod bumped into his shoulder, and S1 lifted a hand to rest it on top of his pod, rubbing it gently back and forth.

“I will keep that in mind.” He promised.

* * *

He learned that they were ending his deployment the next morning with his daily mail check. He was to tie up loose ends and return to the bunker. There was concern he was losing sight of the objective. S1 thought of his operator’s ever-shortening temper, and lowered his head.

Tie up loose ends…

“Cloud,” He said as he passed by the weapons stand. “Will you be ready to go to the forest tonight?”

Cloud’s loud shout of approval brought a smile to S1’s face again, and he firmed his resolve to enjoy his company as long as he could. Every moment he could.

* * *

The forest was interesting. The air was moist, and so was the ground. The temperature was lower than in the city ruins, dampened by the old trees growing all around them, diffusing the sun. S1 dispatched the guard of the forest kingdom in neat, swift swings of his blade, letting Cloud handle defending himself. It still scared him, letting him handle it. But soon he wouldn’t be able to protect him anymore. Soon…

Cloud didn’t even wait for the last machine to crumble. He was already turning towards the waterfalls nearby. S1 followed him, moving slow and careful in unfamiliar territory. It was a beautiful place, he thought distantly. This rushing water and lush growth.

“This place is amazing,” Cloud said in a soft, wondering tone. “Have you ever seen anything so green?”

S1 turned his attention to the trees, the grass. He wondered if they would look green to him too if he was seeing them with his eyes. The blindfold he wore had never felt less right.

“Is it as you hoped?” S1 asked.

“Well, we haven’t found new equipment yet, but we already saw that weird new machine lifeform, so it already hasn’t been a waste!”

“I’m not talking about the mission,” S1 corrected, shaking his head slowly.

Cloud hesitated, and S1 felt his attention on him.

“Is something wrong?” Cloud asked. “Are you okay?”

“I want you to make me a promise.” S1 blurted, stepping forward into the stream Cloud had waded across. The water was cool and crisp around the ankles of his tall boots.

Cloud was frozen in place, watching him. Then he nodded, reaching down to offer S1 a hand up onto the bar of land between the waterfalls.

“What’s the promise?” He asked, standing so close to S1 that he could feel his breath.

“Don’t ever die for me.” S1 found himself pleading. “If one day I’m gone for good, if they rebuild me and I’m not the same, if my memory fades or my programming changes, you must keep going. You must not stop just because I am not beside you.”

Cloud stared at him, fixated and all the joy wiped off his face in favor of fear.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you.” He whispered.

“They’re calling me back to the bunker.” He said. “Someone else will come to aid the resistance. There’s fighting to be done and I—”

“No,” Cloud whispered. “No… Can’t you tell them no?”

“You know I can’t.” S1 whispered. “I wanted to be sure to take you here, to see this place with you before…”

“Why do you always stop talking,” Cloud whispered. “You always trail off like that.”

“I don’t want to say it,” S1 replied. “It feels like it makes it real.”

Cloud threw his arms around S1 then and there, pressing his face into his chest like he had when he’d come back. This time S1 put his hands on Cloud’s back as well, holding him against him greedily. He wanted to stay close…

“I’m so sorry,” S1 murmured into Cloud’s hair.

“How long do I have you?” Cloud asked, pressing closer, his voice muffled in S1’s jacket.

“I leave in the morning.” S1 murmured.

“I don’t—”

“KilL The InTruDErs!” Howled a machine lifeform nearby, and Cloud whirled, releasing S1 in a smooth motion.

S1 summoned his swords, dodging to the right as Cloud went left, both of them splashing through the streaming rivers. It saved them from the first thrust of the machine’s spear. S1 would have to ask pod for its designation later, it seemed significantly stronger than the desert machines had been. He dodged, blocked, counterstruck, jumping high and coming down with his odachi impaling the machine deep into the earth. He glanced up to check on Cloud, and grunted as the quadrupedal animal-like machine slammed into him. His vision fuzzed for a moment, but he activated a small recovery. It was enough.

He cut them down but it gave him no joy. He missed the yellow eyed, mild machines outside of Cloud’s home.

He was so tired of killing.

When the last machine fell, S1 turned to Cloud, taking a breath to resume his speech, but he was interrupted by Cloud tackling him to the ground. S1 froze up. His instincts, his chips, his programming, said attack. It said strike back. But as Cloud pounded a fist against his chest, S1 couldn’t raise a hand to him. He reached up, drawing Cloud down to his chest, laying on his back, the rushing of the river filling his ears.

“Why does everyone leave.” Cloud whispered against his chest, barely audible.

S1 lifted a hand, resting it in Cloud’s hair, holding his head against his chest. Just lying there with him, the damp moss soaking into his hair, his clothes. Just laying there…

“Can I have something from you before you go?” Cloud asked.

“Anything.” S1 said, and meant it.

So when Cloud sat up on top of him and pulled out a knife, S1 held still. If this was the end… But no, Cloud lowered the knife to his face, and S1 sucked in a breath as the other android sliced off his blindfold.

“I want to see your face,” Cloud whispered. “Just once.”

S1 kept his eyes closed for a moment, just lying still. He heard the knife fall nearby. Felt Cloud’s fingers on his cheeks. At the corners of his eyes. Then he took a slow breath and blinked his eyes open.

There was blue everywhere above him. Vibrant and blinding and bright, and then Cloud’s face. Cloud’s face…

S1 shoved himself up onto one elbow, staring at the android who filled his waking thoughts, who caused the warmth in him that had nothing to do with an awful, molten death. Cloud whose eyes were blue as the sky, just as bright, just as blinding. Whose hair was bright and sunny yellow. Who was staring at him, his expression brightening in disbelief and delight.

“Cloud,” S1 whispered, lifting a hand towards his cheek.

“Your eyes!” Cloud pressed forward, hovering inches away, his expression fixed and amazed. “Your eyes, S1! They’re so green! They’re just like the forest!”

“You’re beautiful,” S1 whispered, staring at Cloud, drinking in the sight of him. He was aware, with his blindfold on. Aware of so many things. But there was a reason they weren’t supposed to take them off. A reason they weren’t supposed to see this world. He’d never asked why. He knew now.

“Me?” Cloud laughed in amazement and confusion. “You’re—”

S1 closed the distance between them. He pressed their lips together, his hand resting on Cloud’s cheek, his eyes closing against the blinding beauty of everything he was not allowed.

“S1,” Cloud breathed, trembling against him.

“Cloud.” S1 murmured, pressing his forehead to Cloud’s shoulder, the smaller android wrapping his arms around his head, holding him in place.

“Stay,” Cloud pleaded. “Stay.”

S1 thought about Yorha. Thought about the faceless humanity on the moon, and their meaningless letters. Thought about their glory and what it meant to him.

“They would hunt me.” He murmured.

“We could stop them.” Cloud held him tighter.

S1 thought of the resistance camp, living on scraps and ingenuity. Thought of the men and women fighting to live.

“Your friends—”

“They’d understand. We might not be able to go back, but they’d understand.”

S1 thought about yellow eyed machines. He thought about androids programmed to cry. He thought about his pod, happy to the point of dancing by Cloud’s side. He thought of himself, feeling the same.

S1 thought about watching a dust speck in the sun, floating. Thought of losing it forever the moment he turned his back. S1 thought about a dust speck. S1 thought about dust.

“Okay.” He whispered.

“Unit S1.” Pod 261. S1 stiffened, and so did Cloud. A pod was Yorha’s final level of control. Their early warning system when a unit went rogue. Their reporters.

“Pod,” S1 said, his voice rough, fear striking him hard and fast. He’d forgotten… he was so used to Pod being on his side, he’d forgotten…

“Connection to bunker lost.” Said Pod 261. “Proposal: Connection to bunker should remain lost.”

S1 stared at his pod, still pillowed on Cloud’s shoulder. Then he held his hand out to it, rubbing the little robot gently when it floated closer.

“Proposal accepted,” S1 whispered. “Thank you, Pod.”

“Affinity levels at maximum.” Pod informed them both, and floated closer, squeezing in between them and into their hug.

S1 looked to the green, green forest and held Cloud a little closer.

He was going to enjoy being lost.


	8. Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After defeating Jenova, Cloud and Sephiroth try to settle into a quiet life together. If only Sephiroth could stop seeing her standing there at the end of the bed. Headless. Angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning: Today’s prompt carries some heavy materials. Intense discussion of nightmares and sleep paralysis, some traumatic sequences, and some gorish imagery. Please be cautious!*

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

“So,” Sephiroth’s voice was dark, his movements slow and dangerous as he crossed the room. “Cloud Strife, hero of the planet, healer of worlds, the Soldier of Soldiers. This is where I find you. Standing there,” a step closer, “wearing only your boxers,” only inches away now, his hand pressing against the door of the freezer and closing it behind Cloud, leaning down into his space, “about to eat the rest of my ice cream.”

Cloud blinked up at him, the spoon already stabbed into the pint of ice cream and his back all but pressed against the fridge as Sephiroth loomed. He stared flatly up at Sephiroth for a moment, then lifted the spoon out of the ice cream. Slowly and deliberately he ate the mouthful, never breaking eye contact.

“Who said it was your ice cream?” He asked, his words lisping as he didn’t bother to swallow first. He leaned comfortably against the fridge, lifting his eyebrows in challenge.

“You could at least use a bowl instead of eating out of the carton like an animal.”

“Yeah, because we’ve never shared germs before.”

“Ill mannered.” Sephiroth accused.

“Spoilsport.” Cloud returned, and switched hands on his ice cream to press his frigid fingers to Sephiroth’s neck.

Sephiroth sucked in a breath, stepping back from the cold, and Cloud laughed at him, bright and friendly.

“I wasn’t going to eat all of it.” He objected.

“Only enough for me to wonder at the mysterious divots in my hard-won prize.”

“Your hard won prize is triple chocolate brownie ice cream?”

“First you wound me with your ice cream crimes, and then you insult my taste? Fiend.”

“You’re a terror,” Cloud accused. “Have a bite.”

“With your spoon?”

“Sephiroth, you kissed me four minutes ago.”

“I already brushed my teeth. This is treachery.”

“Would you just let me finish my ice cream in peace and go to bed?”

“My ice cream.” Sephiroth grumbled. “And no. I’d rather wait for you.”

“And complain the whole time.”

Sephiroth considered, then nodded his approval of the plan.

“Fine,” Cloud said, gesturing to the sofa. “At least sit down while you complain so we can snuggle.”

“Acceptable.” Sephiroth said, dropping onto the plush cushions. “After all, compromise is key.”

* * *

The world was different after meteor. After everything. It was a difference every human left living was intimately familiar with. A hard line in their lives. There was someone you were Before Meteor, and there was someone you were After.

Cloud saw it everywhere he went. Souls lost, lives changed. Most people didn’t know details. Most people never did. There were rumors, and there were stories, but in the end most people hadn’t been there. Those who had been… They didn’t talk about it much.

They talked about the good times, sure. The nights around campfires, in haunted hotels, in cozy inns. They cautiously brought up lost friends, and tried to navigate the mingling joy and sorrow of those memories.

But the struggle, the exhaustion, the pain too-quickly erased by potion after potion, only to be followed by more pain, the betrayal, the confusion, the overwhelming inescapable nature of it all…

They didn’t talk much about that. It was in the air around each of them. In their lungs. They breathed it in, and shared it silently in close spaces. The memory of it was physical, the ache in their chests, like distant echoes of old injuries, stinging as they met in the strange brightness of After.

No one bothered bringing up the nightmares. They all had them. Every last one of them. Reeve tried his best–the most familiar of all of them with how it should be after a war. He suggested therapists, told them his WRO would cover the cost, that they had things to work through. Some of them accepted, but none of them pushed. None of them asked each other about it.

Cloud stayed home, not out of unwillingness to recover, but out of exhaustion from trying to. He’d come so far, since those awful days in the beginning. Since Tifa in his mind helping him separate fact and fiction; his memories from Zack’s memories from Jenova’s influence.

Cloud didn’t ask Sephiroth why he chose to go, and he didn’t ask what they talked about after. Sephiroth offered little pieces up sometimes. No details, only a softly spoken ‘mostly we talk about the war in Wutai’ or ‘she said some things I hadn’t thought of.’ Usually he just sat quietly at Cloud’s side for a while, until whatever he’d dug up was safely filed away again, and he could summon up smiles for Cloud once more.

Which was why Cloud thought nothing of it, the first time he woke up to his alarm to find Sephiroth in a cold sweat beside him, his brows twisted and his eyes closed. He only turned off the alarm and wrapped his arms around the man he adored, who had already been breaking before Jenova, before Nibelheim, before everything.

Before.

* * *

Sephiroth had never slept particularly well. It was a function of what he was. How he’d been raised. Hyper-vigilance had been programmed into him as intentionally as violence. Even now, after all these years, he had only barely begun to unpack the damage his upbringing had done. Had only begun to compartmentalize how much of who he was was because of his nature, and how much was what he’d learned through the necessity of survival.

When he woke up in the still-dark room, staring up at the ceiling with a feeling of wrongness, it wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t unusual at all. Not unusual to feel the weight on his chest, as if something was slowly tightening around him. Not even particularly unusual to feel his limbs like lead, as if his body was not his own.

There was something in the room. Sephiroth’s instincts all but screamed it at him. There is something in the room. So Sephiroth tore his gaze from the ceiling and looked down.

She was swaying. Back and forth. Back and forth. Small motions that somehow made focusing on her so hard. She was just as he remembered her. Just like before. Grey-blue skin crumbling and churning in unnatural whirls; arms twisted out behind her in a mockery of wings. She was swaying, her body bare, larger than life, she was swaying, twitching towards him, wanting him, wanting something from him.

She didn’t have a head. She didn’t have a head. She didn’t have a head. What had he done to her, to his mother, what had he done, what had he done, what—

She didn’t leave. He didn’t wake up. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t call out, could do anything but taste fear like bile. His hands wouldn’t move. Wouldn't even grip the sheets. He was trapped with her. He was trapped.

He watched her swaying, swaying, swaying. He felt her blood pounding in his veins.

It went on till the squeezing in his chest was too much. Hours and hours and hours as his breath strained, and she swayed. While his head swam, and her arms were wings, and her head, her head, her head her head her

Mother please

Mother

“Sephiroth?” Cloud’s voice called, and Sephiroth snapped his eyes open, gasping for air, jolting out of the bed, across the room, away from where she’d stood, where she’d been standing, his living nightmare, his headless mother, his fault, his fault, his fault.

“Hey, easy,” Cloud said softly, shifting across the bed, his eyes worried as he sat on the edge carefully, one pale hand extended to Sephiroth. “It was only a nightmare, Seph. I had one too.”

“I--” Sephiroth could barely get the word out. He felt dizzy. Ill. She was still after him. Still inside him.

“I’m coming over, okay?” Cloud said, and stepped past where her ghost had been. When he folded his arms around Sephiroth, it was so warm. Cloud's arms always felt so safe. This man who had cut her down at the end, with Meteor crashing down on them, when Sephiroth had faltered.

This man…

Sephiroth bowed his head into Cloud’s hair, and let himself hope.

* * *

His therapist said it sounded like sleep paralysis, when he mentioned a figure at the end of his bed, and he let it stand at that. It was a comforting thought, that it was a human thing to happen. That there were people otherwise normal who saw dark figures at their bedsides and could not move to flee them.

“Try not to open your eyes if you feel that happen again,” His therapist offered with a sad smile. “The hallucinations are just your brain still dreaming, but they feel real because your eyes are open.”

So when he came home to his worried lover he told him it was fine. Just a dream. If the feeling of dread and sickness followed him, that was to be expected. He was used to feeling doom lingering over his shoulder.

“You look worn out.” Cloud murmured, cupping his cheek. His touch was so gentle, though his hands were worn rough with fighting.

“I don’t think a nap is a terribly good idea at the moment.” Sephiroth murmured, trying not to let his fear of resting show. It wouldn’t do to have Cloud know he was afraid. Cloud already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The last thing Sephiroth wanted was to be the weight that broke him.

“How about some of your ice cream then?” Cloud offered with a small smile. “I’ll even use a different spoon this time if you want.”

“I quite like using the same spoon,” Sephiroth murmured, pulling Cloud close and propping his chin in his spiky hair. “Just only when it’s my idea.”

“Of course.” Cloud said with amusement that almost sounded genuine.

* * *

By the time they laid down to sleep, Sephiroth had almost forgotten his dread. It came rushing back with that feeling of Wrongness.

He was staring up at the ceiling before he could remember not to open his eyes. He didn’t even have time to curse himself for it. His breath caught in his lungs. If it was this again. If she was there again. He tried to keep his eyes on the ceiling. Tried not to look down. Felt like a coward. Was it more cowardly to keep his eyes averted, or to look towards what his gut was screaming was danger?

It didn’t matter. He knew she was there. It filtered through into his awareness in pieces, even as he stared up at the ceiling, trying not to dream.

It was the soft, rhythmic sound of weight shifting. Back and forth and back again. Swaying.

Sephiroth closed his eyes. Couldn’t command his hands enough to clench his fists. Tried not to hear.

He looked down anyway.

She was closer.

* * *

Shame was a powerful motivator. Cloud woke him from a gasping, terrified sleep. He had blacked out once more, breathless and petrified under Jenova’s attention. He did not bring up the sight of her. The ghost of her.

He was not supposed to have opened his eyes.

It felt real, but Cloud would have felt it too if it had been, he was certain. And though Cloud had a tired look about him, and rubbed his eyes more than usual, he did not mention having felt a world-ending terror at their bedside.

So Sephiroth didn’t mention it either. He told him it was nothing, only another nightmare. That they’d gone deeper in therapy recently, which wasn’t exactly a lie. That perhaps he had stirred up more than he had intended to, which also was not exactly a lie.

They were half-truths close enough that he latched onto them himself. Silently scolded himself for having stirred up memories in speaking with his therapist, for having brought turmoil into his new life, which should have been peaceful.

He found himself obsessing over it silently as he worked on Strife Delivery Service’s accounts. What he had said that might have made him worse? What he had done to interrupt his and Cloud’s happiness?

What had happened to her head?

* * *

That night when he felt it he opened his eyes like a punishment. Stared up at the ceiling knowing it was his fault. He was so tired. He could feel the exhaustion like sand in his eyes, dragging back through their sockets, rubbing the inside of his skull raw. The weight on his chest was worse than ever, and even without looking at her he was straining to breathe from the weight of her presence.

She was rocking back and forth, too violent for swaying now, too intent. She looked like she was trying to work up the momentum. Like something was holding her to the floor, and if she moved hard enough, fast enough, she could break free of it. Her right arm cracked, twisted, reached out. When she touched Sephiroth’s leg, it seared like acid. She was so close he could smell her, death and mako and cloying, sweet sickness.

He couldn’t scream. She had no eyes for him to look into, no face for him to beg mercy from. He had stolen it from her, stolen her destiny and his own, stolen their freedom. Her hand clenched on his leg, and Sephiroth could not scream. Could only stare at the gore of her neck, where he had cut her head from her shoulders and dragged her into the lifestream with him.

Mother, he tried to beg, though his lips didn’t move, his breath only faltering, not even a whimper escaping his lips. Mother, mother, please…

* * *

“You’re limping.” Cloud said, frowning in worry as they moved to the kitchen for breakfast.   
  
Another traumatic, horrible morning. Another day of Sephiroth looking pale as death, covered in a cold sweat, his breath hitching and stuttering like Cloud had only seen once before this awful week of nightmares. That once had been after their fight with the mutated Hojo. When Sephiroth, bleeding badly, half-dead, had stared down at the ruined remains of the man who had raised him.

It was terrifying then. It was terrifying now.

“What?” Asked Sephiroth, bleary and distracted.

“You’re limping.” Cloud repeated, nodding to Sephiroth’s leg, lifted half-off the ground even as they paused in the hallway to speak. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Sephiroth said, blinking rapidly. “No. It’s only in my head.”

Cloud felt his blood run cold, watching the man walk past him into their kitchen. The last time something had been in his head…

“Seph?” he said, softly, cautiously, aware he was treading on horribly thin ice. “Is this… Are you feeling like you did in Nibelheim?”

He regretted it instantly. The look of hurt that Sephiroth flashed him. The way his brow twisted and his expression fell. The disappointment. The pain.

“No.” He whispered, slowly sitting at the table, pulling his eyes off Cloud to look down at his hands.

“Did something happen?” Cloud asked, wanting to back down, but wanting to push at the same time. He didn’t know which was safer. He didn't know which was right.

Sephiroth didn’t answer him. Cloud could see his eyes going cold. His shoulders tightening, pulling back, a panic response that called him inexorably towards violence, as always.

Cloud didn’t know how to apologize for the accusation. The fear. He didn't know if he _should._ He stood there a long moment, watching Sephiroth sit silently at their breakfast table, before slowly walking over and kneeling at his side.

“Can I see your leg?” He asked softly. “Just to make sure? I don’t want you to be hurt.”

Sephiroth finally looked at him again, so that was something. When he lifted his leg, slowly, Cloud cupped his heel, shifting his sleep pants up. He gasped softly when he saw the mottled red band around his skin.

“Seph, what happened?” He whispered in horror.

But Sephiroth had gone still and grey as stone. He was staring down at the mark on his leg. He started to shake.

“No.” He whispered again, so much weaker than before, his voice a plea. Begging. “No…”

He did not speak much more after that. Not for the whole, long, terrible day. He spent it cold and ashen, his face hidden against Cloud’s shirt and his hands clenched on his arms. Cloud would have bruises. He didn’t mind.

It was nearly seven in the evening before Sephiroth would let Cloud check on his leg again. By then the strange, acidic burns were gone. Healed away.

“I thought she was a nightmare.” Sephiroth said, his voice soft and devastated.

“Who?” Asked Cloud, wanting blood.

“Jenova.” Whispered Sephiroth, and Cloud felt like the world had fallen out from under his feet.

* * *

“Are you sure?” Cloud asked again, for the tenth time.

“I don’t know,” Sephiroth muttered, his eyes fixed on the wall. “It looks like her. It feels like her. Irene said—”

“You told your therapist before you told me?”

“I didn’t tell her who I saw.” His eyes narrowed, angry and intense. “She said it was common in some people. Sleep paralysis.”

“Sleep paralysis doesn’t burn your ankle.” Cloud snapped.

“I am aware, Strife!” Sephiroth snapped, rising from the couch to glare at Cloud. Fear was so easily malleable. Strike it right and it rose and coiled into anger. It was so much easier to be angry than afraid.

“I thought you said it wasn’t like Nibelheim. Or were you lying to me again?”

“I haven’t lied to you!” Sephiroth could feel her blood under his skin. Her rage, her anger. Or was it his? It was all jumbled up inside him. He hated humanity, or she did, or they both did. They’d been used, been hurt, and he’d failed her, left her, killed her. No wonder she had come for him, no wonder, no wonder.

“Hey,” Cloud’s voice was startlingly close. He looked down at him in a jerking quick motion. Only felt himself holding his breath when Cloud touched a hand to his chest.

“Breathe, okay?” Cloud urged softly, his voice shaking a little. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well. I guess better than you have been though…”

“I thought it was over,” Sephiroth found himself whispering, as he slowly sank back down into a seat, this time with Cloud beside him, his hand on his chest, reminding him to breathe.

“Me too,” Cloud murmured. “Me too. I’ll stay up with you tonight, okay? If she comes, I’ll stop her.”

“Thank you.” Sephiroth murmured, curling in on himself slowly, putting his head in his hands. “I’m not strong enough to face her…”

“You’re strong enough.” Cloud murmured, sliding his hand through Sephiroth’s hair. “She’s just cheating.”

That night, Cloud stayed up with Sephiroth. Sitting on the sofa, watching something mindless on TV. When Sephiroth fell into an exhausted sleep, Cloud covered him in a blanket and sat beside him, watching and waiting.

But the whole dark, long, anxious night, nothing happened. And by the time Sephiroth woke up, they had both convinced themselves that they were wrong and it had been a dream after all.

* * *

“If she shows up again, wake me up, okay?” Cloud said softly after an awkward, silent breakfast the next morning. “If it’s enough to make you this stressed and unhappy, it doesn’t matter if it’s a dream or not. I’ll help if I can.”

“I know you will.” Sephiroth murmured. And then, because Cloud was still giving him that hopeful look, he added “I’ll try.”

But dream or not, he had questions he couldn’t answer as he was. Or at least where he was, with what little he knew.

Her head…

“Please drive safe today.” He made himself say, watching Cloud move. “I’m sorry for keeping you up all night.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Cloud said, smiling past his exhausted eyes. “You were able to get some sleep. I’m so glad for that, Sephiroth. I know you’re so tired.”

Sephiroth waited until he was gone to call the only person he knew who might know where to start, and wouldn’t just kill him for asking.

“Vincent,” he said into the phone, “I could use some assistance.”

Vincent brought him twelve binders. Information from Nibelheim, from Shinra, from the new WRO. Sephiroth stared at it with quiet disbelief.

“You would trust me with this?” Sephiroth asked.

“You would not?” Vincent returned, his eyes flat. “Information is a weapon, Sephiroth. I have fought beside you long enough to trust you with this weapon. I hope you find your answer.”

Sephiroth read most of the day, Cloud’s accounting hurriedly finished and set aside to make way for his research. The Northern Crater seemed right, but he didn’t think it was so. He had taken her head with him into the Lifestream. It had not been with her when they faced her in the Crater. She had only grown a new one.

He looked for answers, his blood running cold as he forced himself to read the notes of his creation, looking for clues about her. About what she could do. About what she could survive.

The look of fear in Cloud’s face when he returned to find him hunched over his reading was enough to break Sephiroth’s heart.

“I’m only looking for answers.” Sephiroth murmured, regretting he hadn’t noticed the time and hidden away his research.

Cloud swallowed hard, watching him.

“You’re not sleeping,” he whispered, “and now you’re reading obsessively. Is it the same books as before in those binders?”

“This is not like Nibelheim.” Sephiroth whispered. “And even there... Even there you stopped me before it went too wrong, Cloud.”

“Stopped you, and lost you, and lost myself too,” Cloud whispered, “For years. Is that in there too? What he did to me?”

“Probably.” Sephiroth murmured.

“I don’t want you to know.” Cloud told him, his voice rough.

“I still have questions.” Sephiroth was shaking his head, watching Cloud’s breaths get shorter and sharper as he grew more distressed. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I won’t read past what he did to me, I swear it, but I have to know, Cloud.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Cloud whispered, his voice thick with tears he wouldn’t shed. “Maybe she’s just inside of you.”

“Cloud—”

“Don’t make me stop you again.” Cloud hissed, agony and sorrow mingling in his voice, his expression, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a grimace that could have been mistaken for anger.

He left before Sephiroth could explain himself. Before he could demand apology, or explanation for the sharp words. And he found he didn’t have the energy to follow. He let out a shaking breath, looking back to his work with eyes that burned.

He stayed up well into the night, his eyes on his books. When she came to him, he almost didn’t notice her at first. When at last he noticed, the sight of her was so incongruous, so unexpected, he almost couldn’t comprehend it.

One moment it was just him, in the kitchen, the only room still lit after Cloud had left him to go to bed early. One moment the only sound was his turning pages and the scratch of his pen, taking notes.

The next, there was something in the dark outside the kitchen door. Something only half-visible through the barely-open door. Something that creaked on the occasionally loud wooden floor of their hallway. Something swaying.

He opened his mouth, trying to draw breath through the panic.

“Cloud.” He whispered, his voice only barely catching. He wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t asleep. “Cloud…”

But his breath left him, and Cloud didn’t come, and she stood there, headless, swaying, and he sat unmoving in softly lit kitchen until the dark curled in around him from the crushing weight on his chest.

* * *

“Hey,” Cloud whispered, shaking Sephiroth’s shoulder gently. The man was slumped over the table, asleep. Cloud couldn’t help but feel a little relief from that fact. Sephiroth hadn’t slept in the Nibelheim mansion. He knew that much at least.

The other part was terrified. Sephiroth’s hand was clawed on the surface of the table, not relaxed in sleep, but rigid as if with death. For a moment, when Cloud walked in the room and saw him, hunched and stiff like that…

But Sephiroth’s breaths were ragged but steady, another nightmare tormenting him. Cloud felt exhaustion dragging at him as well. He kept having the same dream, everything burning… He hoped it was only a nightmare and not a premonition. Seeing Sephiroth with those books last night… He wasn’t sure anymore.

When Sephiroth jerked awake, he ripped the page of the book he’d been reading. He was on his feet in moments, the chair tipping over and cracking on the floor. Sephiroth staggered back, off-balance a moment. Cloud caught him by the arms, gently, steadying him.

“Hey.” He said softly. “You fell asleep working.”

“I wasn’t asleep.” Sephiroth muttered, dazed, disoriented.

“Seph, hey…” Cloud glanced down at the table, the notes. He’d only written about a page and a half.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Sephiroth whispered, gripping Cloud’s arms in desperation. Cloud winced at how tight the grip was, looking down to Sephiroth’s hands.

“Something is wrong.” Sephiroth insisted, staring down at Cloud. “Something is wrong. I wasn’t asleep last night Cloud. She was right there, and I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t asleep.”

Cloud stared up at him, afraid for him. Afraid of him.

“Something is happening to me,” Sephiroth gasped. “Everything points to Nibelheim, where I took her head. I have to go back, Cloud. Please. Please trust me.”

Cloud looked at his terrified eyes, the pupils like needles in his acid eyes.

“I believe you.” He whispered past his own sick fear. “We’ll go.”

* * *

Even with all of their connections, it took them until nightfall to arrive in Nibelheim. Cloud got them a room at the inn. Sephiroth only stood beside him, silent and still. He had spoken little, his expression shadowed with exhaustion, only responding when someone spoke directly to him.

Once they were in their room, Cloud pulled Sephiroth to one of the two small beds.

“I’m not going to sleep.” Sephiroth murmured, though his eyes were drooping.

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Cloud murmured. “But I haven’t been sleeping well either, and I don’t want us to both go in there with nothing left to give. I figure it’s better if you stay up all night next to me instead of sitting alone. Being apart last night didn’t help any.

“No,” Sephiroth murmured, swaying. “I tried to call for you…”

“If you call me tonight, I’ll be right next to you.” Cloud soothed, stroking a hand over Sephiroth’s hair gently. “Try to relax a little, even if you aren’t sleeping. You’ve been shaking all day, Seph.”

Sephiroth sat on the bed as Cloud lay beside him. He kept his eyes on the foot of the bed, waiting. He kept his eyes on the half-dark there, the light on his side of the bed till glowing dim yellow in the room, even as Cloud let out a shaking breath and relaxed into the bed beside him.

He kept his eyes there as Cloud’s slow breathing filled the room, and his warmth soaked into his side. He kept his eyes open. He kept…

He woke up to the ceiling above him, and the dark, and faint yellow glow, and the feeling of something Wrong. He didn’t even have time to decide whether or not to look up. The weight on his chest was back, all but suffocating. Something burning touched his leg, and then another something burning, and a heavy weight. She was coming for him. Coming for him. Crawling up his body, and he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t scream, but Cloud was right there, and Jenova’s hand was burning on his thigh, and all he had to do was call out and Cloud would be there, and his stomach was on fire at her touch, and he knew all at once she was coming for his head, she would take his if she couldn’t have her own, he needed—

He forced his eyes to turn to Cloud. Forced his lungs to breathe in.

The bed next to him was empty.

Jenova’s hand raked over his chest, reaching blindly upwards.

And Sephiroth understood a great many things in a sudden moment.

Cloud’s eyes dark, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, Jenova’s presence outside the kitchen door when Cloud wasn’t with him, Cloud not answering his quiet call, Jenova’s absence the night Cloud had been awake, the burn on his foot, her physical reality when there should have been nothing of her left NOTHING of her.

Nothing save for what was inside of him

And inside of Cloud.

The knowledge crystallized inside of him, and he whipped his head around to stare at the headless, heavy figure before him. Larger than life. Larger than Cloud. His muscles were paralyzed, his chest constricting with the weight, his body was burning.

His Cloud was in there.

Sephiroth screamed. Screamed, and called every ounce of strength he had. Every fragmented scrap of anguish and fear and the petrifying, all-encompassing love he had for his partner, his friend, his Cloud. He screamed, and he launched out of his stasis and crashed against her burning body.

“Give him back!” He screamed, tumbling with her flailing crumbling grey flesh to the floor. “Give him back!”

He tore at her. Ripped away her grey-blue skin as air escaped her in a voiceless scream. Tore at the bloody, oozing throat until he found blonde hair beneath it. Pulled her apart till Cloud’s face was visible, eyes empty green, like they had been after the lifestream. Cloud did not blink, but he gasped for breath, over and over and over, and Sephiroth tore at Jenova’s writhing, resisting flesh. 

Cloud moved as he freed him. Fumbled, dazed and empty and possessed. Jenova was fading, her body hissing away into nothing as Sephiroth pulled it apart. He turned his attention off of her, gathering Cloud in his arms, curling over him. Cloud’s hands fumbled at him, blindly, pressing against his throat, still trying to take his head for the woman who had controlled him.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered, catching his hands, drawing them away as Cloud struggled weakly. “Cloud. Come back to me.”

The room reeked of death. Of Mako. Of cloying, sweet sickness. It clung to Cloud like a second skin, the shreds of Jenova’s flesh still hissing free of his sweet face.

“Come back to me,” Sephiroth whispered, cradling him in his arms and rocking slowly, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

It was hours yet before Cloud was himself again. Whatever Jenova was doing to him, it had to run its course at last. Sephiroth held him against his chest, stroking his back, keeping his arms pinned between them as Cloud made soft, breathy sounds and tried to get his hands around Sephiroth's throat. The burns on Sephiroth’s legs and body healed slowly. It wasn’t until nearly sunrise when the trembling body in his arms took a shaking, uneasy breath.

“Sephiroth?” He whispered.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth held him tighter, pressing his face into his hair as Cloud shifted, clearly uncomfortable and confused.

“What--” Cloud was shivering again, trying to pull away.

“Just a moment,” Sephiroth whispered into his hair. “Please, just a moment more. You almost smell like you again.”

“What do you mean?” Cloud’s voice was small, afraid.

“I thought it was something wrong with me,” Sephiroth’s voice was choked. Cracked. He couldn’t cry, he wasn’t human enough, but he’d spent the long night keening, holding his shattered lover, regretting so much. “I didn’t think… I didn’t even consider she would be using you…”

“Using me?” Cloud’s voice cracked in the middle of the world. When he pushed away, Sephiroth could see the dying green light in his eyes. The tears building there.

“Last night,” Cloud whispered. “Last night, I was dreaming about fire again. About you burning, and then… And then I felt like I was burning, like I was… And you were there, and.. And I needed… She needed…”

Sephiroth saw the moment it sank in. The moment Cloud’s expression crumbled. The moment his world unraveled.

“She was using me?” His voice was so small. So wounded. “She was using me again? Like with the black materia?”

“Cloud—”

“How can there… How can there be enough of her left in me to… I could have killed you!”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth whispered, catching his face, stroking his thumbs over Cloud’s cheekbones, through the tears spilling down his slack, pale face. “If anything I think it was your involvement that kept me from dying nights ago.”

Cloud’s face was a study in misery and terror. His lip trembled, his brows twisted. It was more a pained grimace than anything, and Sephiroth had no answer for it but to hold him again, almost crying out from relief when this time Cloud held him back, tight and desperate.

“When is she going to be done taking from us?” Cloud gasped.

“When we stop her.” Sephiroth replied, holding him tighter. “You don’t have to come. If you don’t want to. You’ve been hurt enough. This is between me and her.”

“You aren’t going alone,” Cloud hissed in response, clenching his hands in the fabric of Sephiroth’s jacket, holding him tighter. “You aren’t going in there alone.”

Still, they sat on the floor a good while longer, in the place where Jenova had fallen, just holding one another.

* * *

The walk to the reactor was just as awful as Cloud remembered. Or, at least, nearly so. He was no longer human enough to worry about a falling bridge. It was an inconvenience more than anything. They looked at the rickety structure then at each other. With a cautious shared smile they simply jumped down.

It was a long way down and an uncomfortable landing, but it was better than an unexpected fall.

As soon as they were upright again, Cloud took Sephiroth’s hand, and held on as tightly as he could. Sephiroth held back.

There was a shadow on them. Around them. They wore it in their expressions, Cloud knew. The townspeople–-The New Townspeople. The Shinra actors who had taken their places-–had gotten out of their way the moment they saw them coming, with expressions of fear on their faces. Cloud couldn’t say what he looked like, but he knew what Sephiroth did.

He looked half-dead, and ready tear the world apart. Cloud held his hand all the tighter, and Sephiroth gripped him back till both their hands were shaking.

“What will we find in there?” Cloud asked as they made their way out of the caves, up to the reactor.

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth replied, his voice flat and miserable. “Nothing good. Don’t let go.”

Cloud straightened his shoulders, taking a deep, bracing breath.

“I won’t.”

The reactor was different. It was worse. The beings in their pods, asleep or dead or both, that had been there every time Cloud had come, had all been opened, exposed to the air, drying once-human corpses in the reactor’s humming power. At first Cloud thought there were wires coming out of each of them. But then he shuddered in realization. Not wires. Just skin. What remained of their flesh and blood, slowly, slowly siphoning off them and back into the main body.

“Reunion.” Sephiroth said grimly, and Cloud pressed closer to his side.

“I won’t let her have you.” Cloud said, drawing his sword with his free hand.

“Nor I you.” Sephiroth said. “Let’s cut off her source.”

Cloud cast a Firaga on the left side of the room. Sephiroth cast a Gravity spell on the right. The tragic corpses vanished in a rush of flame and force. Cloud and Sephiroth ascended the stairs. There was a pool of old blood in the center, and both of them paused there, heads bowed a moment, looking down on the ground where a good man had once fallen.

“He wanted her dead too.” Cloud said firmly, and lead the way up to her chamber.

There was a body in the mako tube. It was not the body they remembered, but it was there. Arms twisted back, body leaning forward, supported by wires not of science this time, but of stolen flesh. It was a patchwork, piecemeal. But it was only a body. Sephiroth stared at the headless form, his nightmare incarnate, and felt his chest tighten. Cloud shook him lightly by the hand, forcing his focus back onto him.

“My--” the voice that echoed in the chamber came from below. Deep, deep below. It was not a single voice, but a mournful chorus. A terrible amalgam. “Head. You have,” Sephiroth shuddered, repulsed. “My head.”

“You gave it to me.” Sephiroth said, forcing himself to take a step forward. “You cannot take back a gift.”

“You--” the voices moaned “are mine. I gave--” a rasping, hollow sound from below, like a great draw of breath “you life.”

“A gift again.” Sephiroth said, shaking like a leaf in the face of her. “You gave it, but it is mine now. You may not have it back.”

“I will--" the chorus amplified, angry “take it!”

Cloud felt the chill up his spine. The tingle in his arms, and eyes and blood. Felt the stinging pain of his Sephiroth cells, his Jenova cells, awakening. But he was not asleep, to be taken so easily. He clenched his teeth, and he held his ground in his own body.

“Cloud.” Whispered Sephiroth, turning his burning eyes to him.

“I have it.” Cloud gasped, fighting for control and holding fast to what ground he took.

“Ungrateful children!” Jenova was howling in her mangled lifestream voice. “You will burn with this world!”

“Cloud,” said Sephiroth slowly. “I have a plan.”

“You said that in a way that makes me think I’m really not going to like it.” Cloud stuttered through his shaking.

“You are really not going to like it.” Said Sephiroth, and held out his hand.

Cloud saw the moment Jenova's flesh hesitated. Saw it waver in place. And he understood Sephiroth’s intention in a horrible rush.

“Seph,” he said, anxiety swelling in him so quickly that the rush of it almost sent him tumbling out of control and into Jenova’s grasp.

“Reunion goes to the strongest member of the family.” Sephiroth said, squaring his shoulders, firming his stance. “That is me, mother.”

“Seph!” Cloud held his hand tighter as the body in the mako tube lurched. As a garbled sound came from beneath them, something indecipherable and raging.

“Don’t let me fall.” Sephiroth whispered, and locked his legs.

The body staggered forward, the line of shocking green peeling off its back and down into the raw mako below. It was straining against its own movement in a macabre game of tug of war. The trailing strands of flesh twitched and jolted, wrapping around Sephiroth’s arms and neck and waist greedily, wanting more of him. Cloud felt Sephiroth shudder, and he shifted his grip, releasing his hand and his sword both. Stepped behind Sephiroth and pressed his face to his back, wrapping his arms tightly around him, holding him in place.

“Jenova,” Sephiroth said, his voice clear and ringing despite that Cloud could feel his chest heaving with every breath. “It is time for your Reunion.”

Cloud couldn’t see what was happening, pressed tight against Sephiroth’s back. But he felt it when the body reached them. Felt the burns on his arms where it touched as it fell against Sephiroth, trying to merge with him, to sink into him, to absorb him. He heard the clenched sound of pain that escaped Sephiroth and knew it burned him too. He felt its flesh slough away in terrible chunks, leaving scorch marks and pain and agony. He felt Sephiroth stagger, and he held him tighter. The garbled, furious sound from below them was still screaming up and around. Cloud could feel the whole building shaking, jarring the metal grating beneath them.

“Don’t let go." Sephiroth gasped. He twisted in Cloud’s grip. Wrapped his arms tightly around him in return, crushing Cloud up against his body.

Cloud heard the rush of the mako rising, pressed his face to Sephiroth’s burn-ravaged chest, and clung to him for both their lives.

The mako enveloped them in a moment. An eruption of pure force. For a moment, the whole world went silent in the liquid rush of it. Then there was someone screaming all around them. A thousand someones. When Cloud opened his eyes, twisting without releasing Sephiroth, he saw Jenova’s chorus.

They were people. Hundreds of people with red in their eyes and desperation painted across their faces. They were a vortex around them, trapped in the mako, too full of Jenova’s influence to escape. Cloud recognized some of their faces. People of Nibelheim who had survived Shinra’s rampage there only to become test subjects and Sephiroth clones. People who had died of the geostigma in the days after the meteorfall. Hundreds of lost souls. Sephiroth was still clinging to Cloud as the mako whipped around them, tangling his hair into a ribbon in its current. But Cloud felt him release one hand from his back. Squeezed him tighter in desperation as he looked up in shock.

Sephiroth held out his hand to those tortured souls. They approached in a liquid rush, a tangle of almost-bodies, and they grabbed him tight. Grasped his offered hand, one at a time, then three, and five, clinging to him, overwhelming him. Cloud saw black pulse in Sephiroth’s veins under their touches, saw the Jenova cells pouring from them and into him. Saw it all in the screaming, churning world under the agony of mako. Saw Sephiroth’s burned face and glowing eyes, and knew it was too much.

So Cloud hooked one arm as securely as he could around Sephiroth’s waist, and with his other hand he reached out too.

The first touch of the souls was agony. Burning in his veins worse than anything Hojo had ever done. And then came the second, and the third, on top of each other, scrambling for him. And Cloud knew he could pull back. Knew he could stop it.

Knew that if he did, Sephiroth would take all that pain, all that despair, all that suffering and the responsibility for it onto himself. So he kept his hand outstretched, and screamed into the suffocating chorus of trapped souls around him as one by one he and Sephiroth absorbed what the Jenova had done to them, and they vanished into shimmering green.

Until finally, finally, there was only one soul left. A single woman, standing before them, familiar and foreign at once. She had a look about her. Something ancient, and strange. She looked, Cloud thought, a little like Aerith. And somehow like Sephiroth too.

She approached them slowly, not screaming. The mako burned, slowly receding. It was falling, draining, powerless. She stopped before them, her hair swirling in the water like Sephiroth’s. And she reached out both her hands, and laid them on their outstretched palms.

“My son.” She said sorrowfully, proudly. “How strong you have become.”

And then there was only Sephiroth and Cloud, and the mako draining down and down and down, until the reactor at long last stood utterly and truly empty.

* * *

The burns across Sephiroth’s chest and face never healed. Neither did the burns on Cloud’s forearms. They were the places where the horrific body Jenova had built for herself had touched them. The marks stayed and scarred.

One of Sephiroth’s eyes shone red sometimes. When he was angry, or sad, or afraid. When he felt anything too deeply. He took to wearing an eyepatch, keeping it covered. He only took it off around Cloud, who loved that red glow.

“It’s a mark of victory,” he would say softly. “It was a victory, Sephiroth.”

Cloud did not wear long sleeves to cover the black marks like lightning crawling up the insides of his forearm, tracing his veins. Jenova’s cells had marked him there as he took them for reunion, but he wore his new scars with pride. They were a final triumph. Something earned. Something paid for with pain and fear.

Something worth it.

Months later, sitting across from his new therapist, he told her so.

“I think that’s marvelous,” she said, smiling. “Love is a good thing to be proud of.”

Cloud thought of going home to a man with a twisting burn scar on his cheek and one eye that glowed red. Of that man cradling him on the floor of an inn, even as Cloud strained to choke the life out of him. Of that man looking at a writhing mass of souls intent on tearing him apart, and holding out his hand to help them.

“Yeah.” Cloud agreed, putting a hand over the lightning-strike scars tracing up his inner arm. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Dungeons & Dragons


	9. Dungeons and Dragons

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* * *

“You all walk down the stairs, and you find this vast underground cavern. But it’s not dark, it’s glowing like the shell houses up above. It’s full of shining water, and ancient columns and structures. Everybody roll a perception check, okay?”

“Damn it. That’s a three.”

“Seven from me.”

“Five.”

“Alright. Cloud, you’re the only one who notices her at first. Aerith is kneeling on a platform in the middle of the room, with her hands clasped in prayer and light shining down on her. It looks like she’s communing with her god.”

“Isn’t her god the planet? Why is it beaming down on her if it’s the planet?”

“Was that Barret saying that, or you Brent?”

“Uh, me. Barret says—”

“Barret doesn’t see her yet.”

“Fine, geeze! Does Cloud point her out to us or what, Cal?”

“Not really, I think. He just starts running. He’s got a bad feeling about this.”

“He does, or you do?”

“Both. We know Sephrioth knew she was coming.”

“But we also know Seth couldn’t make the session of the game.”

“But he’s left messages with Erin before.” Cal pointed out, frowning across the board at Brent.

The DM gave them a quiet smile and winked behind her blind.

“That’s what happened last time he used dominate on Cloud, remember?” Cal said. “He’s not making it as easy to predict as whether he could make it to the session or not. Cloud’s already running.”

“Alright, so you’re running, leaving your friends behind,” Erin said, shifting the minis on the bare-bones dungeon map she’d put together. She looked up with something between pleasure and apology in her eyes.

“Cloud,” She said. “You feel a familiar sensation in the back of your head.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Cal, scowling down at his blonde and spiky mini.

“Do we see what’s happening?”

“Yes, you can see, Tina. Tifa and Barret can see, but you don’t see anything yet aside from Cloud at the edge of the platform. Cloud, someone is trying to cast Dominate Person on you. I need you to roll a wisdom saving throw.”

“Come on,” Cal muttered to his dice. “Please.”

The fighter’s die rolled on the table, and a sigh of relief went up from Brent, Tina, and Cal. The spellsave would have to be unspeakably high for Cloud not to have resisted this time. But of course, in the temple of ancients dungeon, he’d gotten a 15 and still been controlled. They just had no way of knowing how powerful their enemy was.

“Seventeen.” Cal breathed, looking to Erin for her verdict.

Her smile widened.

“The spell is powerful. You nearly follow through. Your hands are lifting the sword despite yourself, over Aerith.”

“Barret’s yelling at him.” Brent informed them.

“Tifa too.” Tina agreed.

“You resist it,” Erin assured him. “You’re able to stop it, though it makes your head ring and your bones ache.”

“Cloud says ‘what—’”

“Character voices, Cal!” Tina objected.

“Sorry.” Cal cleared his throat. Shook his head, his brows furrowing as he got into character. “Ugh… What… What are you making me do?”

Erin looked down at her character sheet for Aerith, shifting something, staring at it a moment as if preparing for what Aerith would say. Then she turned her head towards the half-closed door to her empty bedroom.

“What does Sephiroth do?” She asked, her voice soft and almost sorrowful.

Seth emerged from the dark room slowly, with all the drama of their villain. Cal yelled, and Tina cursed, and Brent let out a little, startled laugh.

“What the hell?” Brent said.

Seth didn’t bother saying hello to them. Didn’t smile and ask for a drink and some chips. He approached the table slowly, his suit immaculate, his eyes calculating. He looked down at the map of minis.

“Sephiroth attacks the paladin,” He said, his voice low. “In the hopes of stopping her before she finishes casting.”

“Roll to attack.” Said Aerith softly.

“Wait.” Cal said, staring up at Seth, their so-often-absent antagonist player.

Seth didn’t wait. He rolled. Erin looked at the dice, and closed her eyes softly.

“Nat 20.” Seth said, his voice low.

“Let me see your weapon and character statistics,” Erin said, holding out her hand. “Then roll damage.”

“Oh my god.” Tina whispered, lifting a hand to her mouth as she stared at the picture the board was painting. The tone in Erin’s voice. Their too-spread-out positions.

Seth rolled. Erin looked at the damage. At the character sheet. Then she carefully handed the pages back to him, took a steadying breath, and smiled at her friends.

“Cloud,” She said. “Aerith looks up at you when you fight off Domination. She sees you there, and she sees you win. And she smiles at you. She is so, so proud, and so happy to see you as yourself.”

She paused a moment, then turned to the still-standing Seth.

“Describe it.” She whispered.

“No.” Brent argued.

“I’m within five feet! I’m right there!” Cal interjected. “Can’t I do anything?”

“Roll.” She said.

The die glared up at him when he rolled. The 1 was incontrovertible.

“You try to move,” Erin said. “But the dominate person left you too weak, even though you fought it off. You’re still trying to process what just happened. You can’t react in time, Cal. I’m sorry. Seth?”

“Sephiroth comes from above,” Seth said, his voice low and rhythmic, paced and practiced, as if he’d been waiting for this moment. He lifted his hand, his little character’s mini held in his long fingers. “He falls like a force of nature, and impales Aerith from behind. She will not stop him here. He’s smiling as he does it.”

“Aerith, no.” Brent murmured, turning soulful brown eyes to Erin.

Erin was silent a moment, her hands folded before her, as Seth set his mini on the table, just behind hers.

“Her head falls forward,” She said slowly, carefully. “She didn’t feel her death coming. The materia in her braid comes undone, and you watch it fall, slowly, bouncing of of every step and then down into the shining water. It’s gone.”

There were tears in her eyes, but she was still smiling. She shot Seth a look of something like sorrow and pride at once.

“So is Aerith.” She murmured, and flipped her character sheet over in a smooth, final motion.

The table was utterly silent for a long time, and Seth held that silence, inclining his head quietly in memory of their DM’s paladin.

“Cloud,” Erin murmured. “Tifa. Barret. Aerith is gone. Sephrioth is before you. What do you do?”

“Cloud can’t even think,” Cal said, his voice shaking. “His hands are shaking, and his mind is fuzzy, and he doesn’t… He doesn’t know what to do. He beat the domination. He finally won.”

“Tifa’s running down,” Tina said, her voice as verklempt as Cal’s. “She doesn’t know they’re too late.”

“Barret too.” Brent said, his expression hard and upset and awed at once. “Were you in the bedroom the whole time?”

“Seth, does Sephiroth say anything?”

“Yes.” Seth rolled his shoulders back, tossing his dramatically long hair over one shoulder and spreading his hands wide, assuming his Sephiroth persona with as much glee and fervor as he always did.

“Do not worry.” He said, a wild delight coloring his voice. “Soon the girl will become part of the Planet’s energy. All that is left is to go North. The ‘Promised Land’ waits for me over snowy fields. There, I will become a new being by uniting with the planet. As will this girl…”

“Shut up!” Cal snapped, still in character, slamming his hand down on the table, jostling their minis, making the others jump. “The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don’t mean a thing. Aerith is gone!”

“Oh?” Seth chuckled, his grin widening as he stared at Cal fixedly. “Are you trying to tell me that you have feelings as well?”

He started laughing. He was a phenomenal actor, Cal thought. Wasted on the business world rather than a stage somewhere. The rest of the world was missing out on this.

But before they could go further, there was a tragically familiar chirping noise. It shattered the tension. The immersion. They all looked to Seth, who had tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling in despair.

“I am so sorry.” He sighed. “Can we take five?”

“Sure,” Erin said, laughing softly, though she still sounded slightly emotional. “Better make sure your office isn’t on fire.”

“I should be so lucky,” Seth muttered. “I would love to Nibelheim that place some days.”

The tension broke in a laugh, and Seth cast them all a friendly smile as he stepped away, answering his phone.

“Did you know?” Tina asked her friend at once, watching her with a worried, sad expression.

“The guys are going to hate that they missed this,” Brent said, already busily typing into their D&D group chat.

“Don’t worry, Seth and I set up some recording equipment so they would be able to see how it went down. I know it’s not the same as being here, but if we waited until all ten of us had a night free, Aerith would have never made it to the forgotten city and you guys would have all gotten bored of the filler. And Tina, I… Knew he would try, and I knew he might succeed. If nothing else, take it as a sign of exactly how tough your final boss is, alright? You’ll all need to be ready.”

Their phones were already starting to chirp and buzz as the others got Brent’s message with the news. Seth’s low voice floated down the hallway where he was fielding his work’s call. Cal kept his eyes turned that way, fiddling with a Dorito rather than eating it.

“You two really do make a fun dynamic when he can be here.” Erin mentioned, a small, knowing smile on her face.

“He’s terrifying.” Cal said with grudging respect.

“Not that much scarier than when Erin’s playing that Shinra brat,” Brent said, fervently replying to someone in the chat. “Yuka says Yuffie’s going to be pissed at all of us.”

“Did Vince chime in yet?”

“Yeah, but he just said ‘With this, another sin has been added upon me.’”

“I swear he just has that saved on his phone and pastes it every time anything goes up in group chat.”

“I’m sorry,” Seth said, walking in from the doorway and interrupting their conversation. “I have to go in after all, Erin.”

“What, now?” Erin asked, alarm coloring her expression. “But Seth—”

“Trust me, I would stay if I could. Do you mind if I play out this interaction? I’ll give you the scene for you to finish up.”

“Go for it,” Erin said with a nod. “We’re all ears.”

Seth took a deep breath. “Right. So I asked if you were really sad. Did you want to respond?”

“Yeah. Cloud says ‘Just who do you think I am?’”

“How far away are Tifa and I?”

“About twenty feet now. You’ll be there in a second.”

Seth drew up to his Sephiroth pose again, his shoulders back, his head high. He laughed, low and dangerous and filled with a cruel humor.

“Stop acting like you’re sad,” he purred in Sephrioth’s voice, that low voice that made Cal shiver, made him feel as inadequate as Cloud must have, standing there in front of Aerith’s body while Sephiroth laughed at him. “You don’t have to act like you’re angry either. Because Cloud…”

He reached out, lifting his mini, holding it there a moment, above them all, above Aerith’s body, above the water-logged forgotten city, above Cloud, and Barret, and Tifa.

“You are my puppet.”

He pulled a folded sheet from the breast pocket of his jacket and passed it to Erin.

“He drops a piece of Jenova,” He said mildly. “And leaves it to mutate and fight the others. Her move set is all on this, as are her stats and all. Will you torment them properly for me?”

“I think I can be an appropriate stand-in for the night.” Erin said, laughing. “Will we see you next Friday?”

Seth glanced to them, giving the three players a small smile. He was strangely shy, when Sephrioth wasn’t in him. When he wasn’t playing the role. He was Aerith’s friend, really. The rest of them only ever saw him at D&D night. Cal wished…

“I’ll certainly try.” He said. “I’ll be wishing you all luck.”

“Yeah right,” Brent snorted, though he was grinning. “Shoo businessman. Go do your dirty Shinra work.”

“Strong words from the man I’ll see at the office tomorrow.” Seth said, arching an eyebrow. “Have a good night. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to spend more time with you all, but I hope…”

“It was amazing.” Cal interrupted. “It was really amazing.”

The smile Seth gave him in return was delighted.

* * *

“You’re good to drive?” Erin asked, walking with Cal to the door hours later, with Jenova’s clone defeated, and their party retreated at last back to the surface, bearing Aerith’s body.

“Yeah,” Said Cal, waving a hand. “It’s not that late. And you know us IT guys are insomniacs anyhow.”

“I just worry about you on that motorcycle.” She sighed. “Especially considering the way you’ve driven in game before.”

“Look, there’s a big difference between going five miles to my house and busting out of Shinra on a stolen motorcycle, Erin!”

She laughed, bright and happy, and he relaxed a little. He knew she loved Aerith. She loved all her NPCs, but Aerith had been a stand-in for her. A way for her to be inside her own campaign.”

“Were we always going to lose Aerith?” He asked her quietly in the dark. “Or was that a Seth Original?”

Erin hummed softly, shifting.

“I don’t think it’s super important what the plans were,” She said after a moment. “This story… It was always going to be something bigger than what I intended it to be. I don’t regret any of it, Cal. Not a single moment.”

Cal smiled warmly.

“Me neither.” He said. “Me neither.”

* * *

Cal got a call two sessions later from Erin, asking him to drop by her house early.

“I have some backstory stuff I want to talk about with you before we move into the next stage of the story,” She said, sounding delighted. “We’re almost to a really big set of moments, Cal.”

“How early?” Cal asked, bracing his phone between his ear and shoulder while he tried to work out some manner of elegance in his cable arrangement.

“Well, Seth will be here around six.”

“Seth’s going to be there?” Cal asked, realizing a beat too late how eager he sounded. Erin was already laughing at him, but it was warm and fond rather than mocking.

“Yes, he’ll be here! And he says he’s cooking samosas for us.”

“I’ll be there as close to six as I can,” Cal agreed. “See you soon.”

“Thank you,” Said Erin. “I hope you’re as excited about our plans as I am.”

* * *

Friday night, with a hot home-made samosa in his hand and a cold bottle of coke on the table, Cal gaped at the dual masterminds of their unmatchable campaign.

“So?” Erin said, even as Seth fiddled with his Sephiroth miniature as if to hide his excitement. “What do you think?”

“Wow,” Cal said slowly. “How long have you two been planning this?”

“A long time,” Seth said softly. “But if you don’t want to do it, that’s alright. Cloud is your character, and we didn’t come up with this to steal his backstory from you. You have total veto rights.”

“Are you kidding?” Cal whispered, lighting up. “This is… This is so exciting! I knew something was going on, but I had NO idea it went this deep! Tell me again his name, the Soldier I’ve been imitating.”

“Zack.” Said Seth, brightening at Cal’s enthusiasm.

“Alright, if you two are both into it, I’d love for you to hash it out together,” Erin said, grinning. “It would be nice to be surprised by the story for a while. I’ll go and start getting my gear together for tonight’s session. It looks like we’ll have nearly everyone.”

“Northern Crater’s an exciting prospect,” Seth said with a small shrug. “You’ve outdone yourself on this campaign Erin.”

“If your levering for advantage or inspiration for flattering the DM, flatter harder.” Erin said, grinning. “Get to planning, boys. You’ve got half an hour before the others start to show up.”

Cal looked down at his own mini, placing his head on Cloud’s pointy hair.

“Sorry buddy.” He said softly to him. “You’ll make it through alright, okay?”

“Of course he will.” Seth scoffed, his own hand folding over Sephiroth as if to hide him from view. “The point isn’t to destroy him, you know. We just thought…”

“Yeah?” Cal lifted his eyes to Seth. “You thought?”

“This is your first campaign, right?” Seth asked, watching him. When Cal nodded shyly, Seth smiled. “You’ve taken to it. Really taken to it. We like Cloud a lot. Who he is, and how he’s changed since we started playing.”

“We?”

“Erin and I. Everyone’s been doing great with their characters, but I think they’d all agree. Your Cloud is the hero of this arc, Cal. And we thought you’d appreciate the challenge. Or more… I hoped you would.”

“I’m really glad,” Cal whispered, feeling his face heat up. “I like our scenes together so much. You’re so… So intense. You make him feel so alive. Even when you’re not here, you keep him present working with Erin. At this point in the campaign, it’s like he’s… Like he’s so much more than just a dude we have to fight. He’s his own myth, sort of.”

Seth smiled, soft and warm.

“I wish I could be here more,” He said softly. “Part of the reason I joined this campaign was so that Erin could introduce me to her friends. One friend in particular.”

His hand unfolded around Sephiroth, moving his little figurine, lifting him off the ground a bit like he was hovering again. Cloud moved his playfully forward, bouncing him up and down just a little as if he were yelling at Sephiroth.

“Who? Brent? You two do seem to get along well.”

“We do, he texts me often. But no.” Seth tilted Sephrioth’s mini back, jostling him ever so slightly as he laughed at whatever Cloud had said. “She… Please don’t tell her I blew this secret, and please know that I’m well past this particular thought. She told me she knew this cute blond I would get along with who might be single.”

Cal blinked, staring up at Seth.

“I’m the only blond in the group.” He said in confusion. Seth glanced to him, a faint smile on his face.

“Oh.” Said Cal, feeling his face heat up.

“I didn’t just come to hit on you.” Seth said. “And I like you far too much to consider you just a prospect. I’m excited you’re willing to try this plot twist with us.”

“It’s exhilarating,” Cal breathed. “Being in on the secret this time. Knowing what’s coming. Planning this with you.”

“I agree.” Seth murmured, lowering Sephiroth slowly. Cal gazed up at him, his face hot and his heart pounding. Having his attention was…

“Boop.” Said Seth softly, rocking Sephiroth’s mini forward to press a plastic smooch against Cloud’s.

Cal laughed, warmly, and tilted Cloud closer to the touch.

“I don’t think Cloud will be super into that after what happened with Aerith.” He pointed out.

“True,” Seth said awkwardly, setting Sephiroth down. “Perhaps some other campaign—”

“Hey.” Cal whispered, seeing Seth’s expression fall. When Seth looked to him, Cal leaned up to catch him in a soft, uncertain kiss.

“Boop.” He whispered when they parted, and grinned when Seth’s face lit up.

It wasn’t until Erin returned to the room that Cal realized they hadn’t actually made any plans.

“Don’t worry,” Seth whispered into his ear as the others began to arrive, standing from his side, but leaning over to continue whispering to him. “Just trust your instincts and follow my lead. I have every faith in you.”

Cal shuddered at the feel of Seth’s whisper against his cheek. He flushed, grinning in delight, and only barely managed to tamp down on his reaction before the others arrived and could suspect something.

He was anxious. Nervous. But the looks on their faces when Sephiroth asked him for the Black Materia and Cloud handed it over was worth anything. And Cal…

Cal relished the horror in their faces when he acted out Cloud’s shattering. Laughing brokenly in delight at the chance to help Sephiroth, wrapping the sound with Cloud's internal conflict and agony and strain. Apologizing to his friends even as he fell beneath Sephiroth’s influence. Begging Aerith’s NPC Hojo for a number. And he savored the look of pride in Seth’s eyes as their plan went off flawlessly.

The plan meant Cal would have to sit out a few Friday sessions, as Weapon awakened and drove the party from the Northern Crater without him but…

Well. Seth must have felt bad about that. Because he made sure to invite Cal out to dinner next Friday night to fill the empty hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Historical Romance


	10. Historical Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heir to Hojo's sprawling estate, Sephiroth finds himself thrust towards a political marriage when his mother falls terribly ill, and turns desperately towards the kindness of a near stranger. Cloud only wants to help the clearly suffering young lord who's always been kind to him over the years. 
> 
> Neither of them could know how much harder they would make it for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Please note today’s story contains an abusive father and husband. Please proceed with caution if this is a subject that is painful to you!*

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* * *

There are days in a life that are never left behind. Days that rise with consciousness every morning, that settle in at the bedside every night and loom there. Days that a mind picks up and turns over and over and over, like a polished gem, or a strange bleached bone. There is something in the texture of them, something in their feeling, something in their content that makes them impossible to place back on the ground and walk away from.

The mind gets addicted to the feeling of them, and will keep them tucked away always, running mental fingers over the curves of those days again and again and again.

For Sephiroth one such day came when the family nurse rushed in a frenzy to his rooms with news that his mother was ill.

The most insidious part of its addictive texture was how unexpected it was. For all the fear and discomfort and confusion and joy that followed that spring afternoon, it was the quiet calm of the morning before the nurse's arrival that clung to Sephiroth’s mind like tar. It was the fresh air, too cold for a perfect spring. It was the birdsong outside his window on the estate. His peaceful morning spent reading letters from his father’s business partners, drinking his first cup of tea, and his feeling for settled relaxation.

The contentment he'd felt that morning taught him to fear contentment in all its forms. For in its wake the pain and horror of finding his mother sick and delirious in bed and the nurse's frightened weeping glared all the brighter. All peace had fled him in an instant as he took his mother’s hand. Asked if they had sent for the doctor. Stared down at her dazed eyes as she looked up and did not know him.

He learned to fear contentment that day. He kept that fear like a found bone tucked away beneath his pillow.

Rotting.

And yet there was a jewel too that day. Something smooth and lovely and strange. Something he felt he should have put down, because he had found the bone of his mother’s illness, and it seemed wrong to keep them both. Seemed wrong to taint one with the other.

But he kept the jewel anyway. The sight of the young man in his room, who had been free to leave his work hours ago, stoking up Sephiroth’s fire to keep his room from freezing in the chill spring night.

The surprise on his face when Sephiroth entered, having expected to go unnoticed in his act of kindness.

Sephiroth, still feeling out the porous, painful, jagged fear had been unable to resist the unexpected brightness.

“Good evening.” Sephiroth murmured, too tired by far for politeness, and yet trying. “Are you here after hours for any reason?”

“I meant no disrespect sir,” the man said, voice soft and uncertain, “only my mother said the lady of the house and fallen ill, and that you had stayed by her today. I thought a warm room when you returned…”

“I take no offense,” Sephiroth said. “I would ask you forgive my ill manner. It has been a trying day.”

The man was quiet a moment, uncertain. For a moment, Sephiroth thought he would leave. He did not understand the fear he felt in that.

“How fares lady Crescent?” He asked instead, soft and worried.

“Does it concern you?” Sephiroth asked. He closed his eyes when the servant flinched, and lifted a hand to forestall any apology or groveling. “I do not ask out of cruelty. Only that I have seen a good many shows of concern poorly intended today.”

He thought of his father cooing and clucking by the bedside, and felt ill.

“It concerns me only in that she has always been kind to my mother, sir.” He said after a moment, watching Sephiroth in worry. “And to me as well. I do not know where we would be if not for her generosity in taking on a widower with no name and her son to serve in such a house as this.”

“Such a house as this indeed.” Sephiroth muttered, hating every inch of it in that moment for having not kept his mother from harm.

“Sir,” the young man said, taking a half-step forward. “You look pale. Please, sit a while before you fall? I will leave you in peace.”

“I would have you stay a little while, if it does not cause you trouble.” Sephiroth said, sitting heavily on his bedside. “And I would have your name.”

“Cloud, sir.” He said. “Cloud Strife.”

“Ah,” said Sephiroth, looking at the fire. “Strife. Your mother helped to teach me my letters, I think, when I was younger. I did not know she had a son.”

“Lord Crescent did not want you mingling with someone of my blood, sir.” Cloud said softly. “I stayed in my mother’s quarters until I was old enough to join her in working.”

“Yes.” said Sephiroth wearily. “That sounds very much like him.”

“Would you like some tea?” Cloud offered, his hands twining in front of his rough clothes, looking out of place in Sephiroth’s perfect, empty room.

“It is so late I fear it may already have become early once more.” Sephiroth replied, though he felt a smile on his lips despite himself. “I would not keep you from your bed longer, though I think you for your kindness.”

Cloud hesitated, then straightened.

“Forgive me for speaking out of line, but it may help you rest to have some warmth in you. It would be no trouble, and give me peace of mind to know you were well looked to after you have exhausted yourself caring for your mother, sir.”

Sephiroth stared at him, surprised by the push-back and relieved by it. There were so few people in his house who would speak to him…

“Who would I be to turn down such kind and well intended thought?” He murmured, not bothering to hide his weary gratitude. “However I ask you please make a cup for yourself as well, else I should feel it was wholly without reward for you.”

“All the reward I need, sir.” Cloud said with a smile that seemed to lean towards something Sephiroth didn’t quite understand. “But I gladly accept. I will return shortly.”

“Sephiroth.” Said Sephiroth, so exhausted of ‘sirs’ and ‘my lord’s and ‘boy.’

“Sir?”

“Call me Sephiroth.” He clarified, watching Cloud in his doorway. “If you would. Though perhaps not around my father.”

Cloud’s smile twitched a hint wider, a look of utter happiness lighting in his eyes.

“Perhaps not,” He agreed. “Sephiroth.”

He slipped out of the room, leaving Sephiroth with the warm fire, hollowed out by his mother’s health but braced by the surprising display of kindness.

* * *

The next day found Sephiroth weary, but his mother much improved. Lucrecia was sitting up in her bed, and smiled when he came to see her.

“Mother,” he murmured, going to her side, “are you well?”

“If not well then mending.” She smiled at him, pressing a rare touch to his cheek before folding her hands neatly in her lap. “They tell me you were by my side the whole day yesterday. Your father must have been displeased at your distraction.”

“Your health was of more importance to me.” Sephiroth tucked his chin, knowing she would disapprove.

“Your heart betrays you as ever, my son.” She sighed, though it was with a hint of fondness. “The world of science waits for no man, and if you are to further your father’s efforts you must learn the business of it. For science alone never put bread on a plate or paid the servants. You understand?”

“Of course mother. I will not shirk my duty. I only feared for you.”

“I know you did.” She said, amusement coloring her words. “But it would give me more comfort to know that my work is being looked to than to know that _I_ am. It is not only for your father that you learn.”

“Yes mother.”

“I do love you, my son.” She sighed, as if reflecting on a particularly nice book. “Despite your flights of emotion. You can be so like your father.”

Sephiroth returned to his desk after and put his head down to the study of his father’s work. Mostly it consisted of slyly handling foolish men. Not even two hours passed before the word came that his mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse once more. Remembering her disapproval he forced himself to stay at the desk, but learned nothing more. The letters swam before his eyes and he could make no sense of them.

Hours later, he stared into his oil lantern. When a knock sounded on his door, soft and careful, he didn’t respond.

“Sir?” A familiar voice called in. “I thought you might like tea.”

Sephiroth closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath.

“Come in.” He called softly in return, and tried not to notice how it made him weak with relief to know he would not be alone a little while.

Cloud had brought two cups, one for each of them, though he’d hidden the second beneath the tray, carrying the whole tea set by balancing it neatly on a simple cup from which to pour tea for himself. When he produced it with a flourish and a smile Sephiroth couldn’t help the charmed laugh it rose from him.

They were silent the first few minutes after pouring. Cloud was obviously uncomfortable still, shifting in his place where he stood.

“You are making me quite anxious,” Sephiroth informed him after a while. “Do sit. I should not think we will be disturbed at this hour.”

“I am sorry.” Cloud muttered. “It is not every day one feels it appropriate to drink tea with one’s employer.”

“Employer’s son,” Sephiroth corrected. “I hardly pay your bills. If you do not want to be here—”

“Oh, sir, that is, Sephiroth. I do. Want to be here. I only… I fear I am terribly poor company. Certainly worse than you deserve.”

Sephiroth hesitated a moment, his hands curled around the warm porcelain of his teacup.

“Why are you here?” He asked after a long moment, lifting his eyes to Cloud. “Have you need of something I can supply you?”

Cloud withdrew as if struck, and his stricken expression made Sephiroth regret his words. He backtracked quickly.

“I ask only because—”

“No, it is a fair question,” Cloud said softly, fiddling with his own earthen teacup, simple and dull compared to Sephiroth’s own. “I can only assure you I want nothing from you, and hope that you believe me.”

Sephiroth watched him, wanting to trust him. Uncertain if he could. Cloud glanced up to his confused gaze, and hurried on, his words tripping over each other in his hurry.

“It is only,” he said, “I have been watching you so long–Oh, no, forgive me, that came out terribly–What I meant to say was when I was younger, when we were both younger, that is, I—”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth said, finding a smile on his face despite himself, taking some comfort in how uncertain, how rushed Cloud had become in his frenzy to explain himself. It was not the sort of thing one of his father’s business men would do. Not the move of someone who had been plotting. “Calm yourself. I am not upset with you. I am only curious, and a little wary. It is not often someone comes to me out of kindness.”

“It should be.” Cloud said, his jaw set and his eyes even in that statement, if no other. “And forgive me. I have often thought on speaking with you about the events that transpired that day. It is only now that I have the chance that I forget every word I would have said.”

“That day?”

“When I first began in my service to your father, at the age of ten. I jostled you in the parlor, as you joined your father and mother for tea with their guests. It was clumsy and foolish of me, and you would have been right to strike me for it. Instead you pretended nothing had happened, even with tea on the carpet at your feet and on your clothes. Your father was furious with you, I think, when he noticed. I wish I knew. I ran, for I was young and afraid. But I did not forget that kindness.”

“The kindness only of not striking you for a mistake?” Sephiroth asked, frowning. He remembered the incident, dimly. One day among many of disappointing his father, and feeling every ounce of that disappointment later at the end of his cane.

“It was a greater kindness than you realize perhaps,” Cloud murmured. “For I was not skilled or useful yet, and my mother was afraid. She cautioned me each day not to err, for our lord was still displeased with the lady for bringing me on at all. Such a common-birthed no-one, not even well bred or handsome enough to be a footman when I grew. I do not doubt had he known he would have taken it as excuse to cast my mother and I both away.”

“So this is gratitude?” Sephiroth asked, uncertain why he felt such sadness at the thought.

“Perhaps it should be,” Cloud flushed, ducking his chin and looking into his teacup. “But no, sir. Sephiroth. Apologies, that will take—”

“All is well. Please, continue.”

“I… Was reading a great deal, at the time.” Cloud said uncertainty, glancing up to Sephiroth. “Many books about great adventures and friendship and men with hearts of gold. And when I looked at you after that day, I thought perhaps you feared your father like I did, and had been brave and true like the boys in those stories. And perhaps I should have admired that in you, and I did and do to be certain. But instead I began to hope that we were kindred spirits, as my books called it.”

He cleared his throat, setting his tea down on the small side-table to face Sephiroth properly.

“It was only the daydream of a child, but in having it I did for some time observe you with the air of a boy hoping to find an impossible friendship. It was foolish, and I hope you will not be much put off of my company, knowing I took such pleasure in imagining us friends, despite the unfit nature of my station. I can only assure you that the childish obsession has passed, and left me only a man grateful to you for your kindness, and admiring you from afar. Respectfully.”

Sephiroth was silent a moment, looking into the weary light of his oil lantern.

“I think,” He said slowly, and noted Cloud tensing in preparation to be cast out. “That we may have shared a taste in books as children. For often did I think how wonderful it would be to find a kindred spirit.”

Cloud split into a grin that looked torn between relief and a poignant nostalgia.

“Hardly appropriate for a man like you to be kindred spirits with me.” He said, laughing softly as if it were a joke.

“My mother is ill,” Sephiroth said softly, watching Cloud’s expression grow quiet and somber. “Ask me how many of those in my station have inquired after her, much less come to me and offered company or comfort.”

“I am sorry.” Cloud said softly. “I heard she had taken a turn for the best this morning, and hoped for you.”

“As did I.” Sephiroth murmured. “She scolded me for staying beside her the day before. I dared not return for fear of disappointing her, but my mind was on her the whole long day, and I could not concentrate. Have you any news?”

“Only that the nurse who tends her in the mornings came weeping back downstairs,” Cloud recalled softly. “And made all of us much afraid with the reaction. She said it was a slow thing. That as she grew more tired, her mind seemed to fade from brilliance into the delirium of fever. I do not think there is much you could have done at her side, but I am sorry that she chastised you so. I think she should be proud, to have raised a son who loves her as you do. It speaks well of her.”

Sephiroth huffed a breath through his nose, part amusement and part quiet pleasure at the words.

“You are free with your compliments.”

“To those who deserve them.”  
  
“Where may I find you in the daylight, Cloud? If I have need of you.”

“I work mostly in the kitchen, sir, for I am not so stately as the butlers would like, but the cooks will have me readily enough.”

“Sir again?”

“It is a habit!” Cloud objected, flushing. “I beg your patience with me!”

“Habits may be broken through regular practice, I have heard.” Sephiroth said, watching Cloud where he sat, flushed and awkward. “I suppose we shall have to practice more in days to come.”

He looked at Cloud’s brilliant grin and doubted that they were kindred spirits with a sinking disappointment. For he had never known himself to smile so brightly.

* * *

His mother was worse in the morning. Sephiroth could not keep himself from her side, but she did not see him. She was sleeping, fitfully, with the doctor attending at her bedside. He was listening to her heart and frowning.

Sephiroth did not stay to watch much more than that.

That afternoon, he delivered the letters to his father at last. He had taken a day more than his father wanted him to, but he knew the content of the quiz he was to be given well enough. In the letters he was to intuit intention, desire, weakness. He came armed with answers, and answered mostly on automatic.

“Father,” he said softly when at last Hojo was satisfied, “has the doctor brought you news of mother’s condition?”

“You waste your time fretting over what you cannot alter.” Hojo said, waving a hand. “Though you learned your lines well for today your prospects still strike me as dismal. Apply yourself to your studies, where you may be of use.”

Sephiroth did not ask him again.

He went to the kitchens, and was greeted by the staff’s alarmed faces. He instantly regretted his choice until he spied Cloud, scrubbing a pot so intently that he had not noticed his entrance.

“Please do not let me trouble you.” Sephiroth said, lifting a hand to the staff. “I only needed a moment away and the ear of one of your staff.”

He saw the expressions on their faces shift. Saw them glance to one another. Then Cloud looked up at their unusual silence and split into a grin.

“Sir!” He said pleasantly. “I did not think you would truly seek me out. With what can I assist you?”

“I only needed some air.” Sephiroth murmured, feeling all the more trapped and miserable for having dampened the merry atmosphere of the room before he entered.

“Will you come then?” Cloud asked, drying his hands swiftly on a cloth. “There is a nice path out the door through here that will take us for a pleasant enough walk.”

“I should not take up your time.”

“Nonsense,” Cloud insisted. “You need only ask what you would have of me.”

“A moment then,” Sephiroth murmured. “If you would be so kind as to show me the path of which you speak.”

“If you’ll excuse me?” Cloud asked the chef, who had more than once during his life smiled at Sephiroth when he thanked her for her efforts.

Sephiroth found himself pinned under the chef’s look. Then she smiled and nodded.

“It would do you good, young sir.” She said, her voice bright. “I shall have some small treat set aside for you when you return.”

“I could not ask—”

“Why, you have not asked.” She pointed out, turning back to her work. “Nor have you ever. I have offered.”

Cloud was watching, smiling, so Sephiroth only sketched a small bow to the chef and the others in the kitchen, all the more embarrassed when they curtsied or bowed back deferentially. Cloud followed their lead with a bow of his own, a bit too late to be officially polite, but well enough to avoid suspicion.

He led Sephiroth out through the servant’s door and into a lane of tall shrubbery which obscured their comings and goings from the guests of the manor and her occupants.

“I should not have interrupted your work,” Sephiroth muttered, awkward and uncertain. “You and your companions have more than enough to worry about without lords entering your spaces.”

“No one of them would mind.” Cloud said. “We often speak of you, you know. That you always compliment the work, always thank the staff, always have your eye out to distract your father if something catches his displeasure. I cannot speak for everyone, but in the kitchens you are well liked, Sephiroth.”

“Sephiroth already!” Sephiroth looked to Cloud with a smile as they walked down the gravel path. “So quickly our practice pays off.”

“Would you see your horse a while?” Cloud asked, his cheeks pink. “The stables are not far. We could perhaps have the hostler prepare him for a ride if you would like to feel the wind?”

“Do you ride?” Sephiroth asked.

“Goodness no,” Cloud laughed. “I am a cook’s scrubbing boy. I have hardly so much as seen the horses. I only know yours. He is deeply striking.”

“He is more my father’s horse than mine.” Sephiroth sighed. “We do not get along, but he is obedient enough.”

“And yet I have seen you sneak apples and carrots away to the stables before,” Cloud noted. “Where do they go if not to your mount?”

“There is a little grey donkey who shows me favor.” Sephiroth muttered.

Cloud’s bright laugh filled the air, and Sephiroth smiled in gratitude at having delighted the man.

* * *

A week later found Sephiroth taking over his mother’s duties in the household, for she had not recovered. There were some days when she seemed on the brink of it. When she scolded Sephiroth for his worry and seemed almost herself. Other days she was barely there at all, faded and weary and absent.

On the fourth day of her illness she had caught Sephiroth’s face in her shaking hands, staring up at him out of dazed eyes.

“My poor son.” She had whispered, while the doctor stammered and Sephiroth had placed his hands over hers on his face.

“There is so much of your father in you,” She had whispered, her hand trembling like a wounded bird’s wing. “I am so sorry. I couldn’t protect you.”

Sephiroth had fled the room with a soft kiss to her forehead and a plea for the doctor to keep her safe. He had wound up in the kitchen, shaking, and all the people there had rallied about him in a strange way seeing his distress. They had pressed tea into his hands, and entreated him to try new delicacies.

Cloud had been there, and Sephiroth had steadied himself against the blond man’s presence. Against his quiet voice.

“All will be well. All will be well.”

But the week passed, and all was not well. Sephiroth took on the duties of planning their public lives. Of writing his mother’s contacts to inform them she was unwell. He had to throw many sheets away for having splotched them with his tears, or written them too emotionally, so his pen trembled on paper.

His father worked, steadily improving his research. His mother’s work went untouched in her absence.

“I fear she is dying,” Sephiroth whispered to Cloud as they stood by the fence of the pasture, watching Sephiroth’s favorite donkey terrorize the horses for the sport of it.

Cloud had said nothing for a long moment. He had looked back and forth, and then moved carefully closer, till his shoulder was pressed against Sephiroth’s as they leaned against the fence.

“You are not alone.” Cloud had murmured, soft and gentle.

Sephiroth caught a breath, closing his eyes tightly against the swell of feeling in his chest.

“May I do something foolish?” He asked a moment later.

“With me?” Cloud asked, a strangely emotional note in his voice. “Always.”

So Sephiroth had unfolded one arm from his side and wrapped it gently around Cloud’s shoulders. He had expected tension, or denial, or stuttered uncertainty. Instead Cloud’s arm wrapped around his middle as if he’d been waiting for the invitation.

They stood in the shade of the trees, keeping their eyes on the donkey rather than each other, but both feeling the other breathe.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth said softly. “I fear I must speak with you.”

“Please do not ask me to leave.” Cloud said softly. “For silly though it was to think us kindred spirits as a child I do think us friends now, as short a time as it has been.”

“And if I wish us to be more?” Sephiroth asked, his voice flat and sorrowful. “I cannot deceive you, for you have been nothing but kind and selfless with me. I would have you know the truth of my intentions and myself. I am not a bachelor at twenty for no reason.”

“Oh.” Whispered Cloud.

“I will not keep you,” Sephiroth murmured at once, lifting his hand. Cloud caught it almost as soon as Sephiroth had lifted it away.

“No.” He said. “Stay. I beg it of you.”

“No harm will come to you, and no damage to your station,” Sephiroth assured him. “I will ensure you and your mother remain safely employed. You need not…”

“Do not speak of yourself so,” Cloud insisted, turning to Sephiroth with a frown. “As if damning yourself. For every word you speak damns me also.”

“Oh.” Said Sephiroth this time, and Cloud smiled sweetly at him past the brightness of his eyes and the strain on his expression.

“It is unfair to you,” Sephiroth added a moment later, “for it puts you in danger, to be the object of my affection.”

“And it does not endanger you, to hold such an affection for a common creature such as I? I would give you a thousand lovers before me.”

“I would refuse them all." Sephiroth whispered. “I find you entrancing, Cloud, and would be yours if there were a manner to do so.”

“Would that there were.” Cloud whispered, a weak laugh in his voice. Still, he held Sephiroth tighter still, his arm a steel band around Sephiroth’s waist.

“May I still meet with you?” Sephiroth whispered. “I do not wish to embroil you in that which may cause you harm, but...”

“I think I should never recover if I were to lose my kindred spirit only now, finally knowing just how kindred we are.” Cloud said softly. “I shall be beside you, Sephiroth.”

“And I you, Cloud. Know that. Should my father discover us…”

“He shall not.”

“If he were to. I would ensure you and your mother’s safety and well-being above all other matters.”

“He should have to pry me from your side.” Cloud insisted.

And from how hard he was holding, Sephiroth felt that should be a tall order indeed.

* * *

“Engagement?” Sephiroth spluttered, dropping the letters he held a flurry to the floor of the conservatory.

“It is well past time.” Hojo said flippantly, his eyes on his odd and exotic plants.

“Mother said I might wait until my prospects were certain, that I might make a suitable match for the man I will become.” Sephiroth objected, crouching to pick up the letters. He glanced to the serving boy who had started forward to help him and shook his head slightly.

The boy pulled back at once, nodding. Sephiroth knew him now as Denzel, one of the children on the staff with no other place to go. Sephiroth knew so many of the servant’s names now… He found himself more protective of them than ever, and would keep the boy out of the firestorm that might descend at any moment.

“Your mother is on her deathbed,” Hojo said. “And you cannot lean on her coddling longer. The match is already made.”

“The doctor says she may yet recover.” Sephiroth objected, lifting angry eyes to his father.

It was an error. Hojo had glanced back. Caught the furious defiant look. Sephiroth caught a slap to his cheek for the thought, and the sound caught in the greenroom, shuddering against the glass.

“You will read what I have given you on the woman promised to you, and you shall come to me tomorrow to tell me how you will win her parents to your side. The match is good despite your foolishness. What ‘assets’ you have are well enough, it seems.”

His sneer of contempt made Sephiroth’s blood run hot. He forced himself to straighten. To keep his chin held high even as he held in his hands letters from the investors he had studied so long, and also one from a man whose daughter he was to marry.

“You are of this house,” Hojo said, dark and intense. “And you will not bring shame upon it. Your duty to your line is to marry and continue the family’s blood, and you will do so. Do you understand me?”

Sephiroth was staring out the window, seeing nothing but only barely restraining the urge to strike back or start screaming.

“Boy!” His father roared.

“I understand, sir.” Sephiroth said, his voice flat. “I shall bring my proposal to you tomorrow to be looked over. If you will excuse me.”

“Sephiroth.” Hojo said sharply, freezing Sephiroth in his tracks. “Do not speak to me of your mother again.”

Sephiroth glanced back at the man, already stooped over his prized plants once more.

“Yes father.” He said softly, and fled the room.

“Mother,” He whispered that night, hunched at his ailing mother’s bedside, anxious for her her help, her support. “Mother, please. Do you know me?”

“My boy?” She whispered, her eyes turning towards him wearily. “My Sephiroth. How tall you are. But here, what has happened to your cheek? No… No need to say. I know. I know. How sorry I am, my son. I only wanted the best for you. Do you know that? I only wanted the best for you. I’m so sorry.”

And Sephiroth’s thoughts of confiding in her, of her assistance, fled in the wake of her sorrowful confusion. He dipped his head, reaching out to take her pale, shaking hands.

“Nevermind, mother,” He whispered. “Nevermind all. I am well. More than well. Everything is alright.”

He held her hand till her confusion slipped away and she fell into a fitful rest.

* * *

“Oh.” Was all Cloud said at first, sitting in Sephiroth’s room with their traditional too-late cup of tea.

“Oh?” Sephiroth asked. “I tell you he has sold my life the moment my mother did not stand in the way and you tell me ‘oh.’”

“I have known a long time now that you could never be mine, Sephiroth.” Cloud said in answer, his voice too calm and too quiet.

“And yet I would be! I would surrender all I have to be. I would run with you in a heartbeat, only…”

“Your mother.” Cloud said softly, a small smile on his face. “And your household, and your life, Sephiroth. And my life as well. We are not storybook lovers, to escape in the woods and live happily. There was never a chance of that.”

“Oh do not speak so blandly of it, I beg you!” Sephiroth moaned. “I cannot stand it, to have only just found you and lose you at once.”

“Perhaps she will be lovely,” Cloud said, turning his teacup back and forth in his hands. “Your betrothed. Perhaps she will be beautiful and kind. Perhaps your donkey will like her better than she likes me, and she will like all the same books as well. She may yet be a kindred spirit to you as well, Sephiroth.”

“Do not speak so!” Sephiroth begged in a voice choked with emotion. “For if she is as you describe I shall not even be able to hate her. It would be only pity I feel then. For though she may wed me, and be painted at my side, and carry forth my bloodline, it is you who I desire! It shall always be so.”

“I beg you that it not be,” Cloud whispered, his head hanging over his tea, his long hair falling forward over his shoulder, bound by the black ribbon as ever. “I beg you not, Sephiroth.”

“Why not?” Sephiroth yelled, not caring for his volume, for his father was half a house away and the servants would not come. “Why not, Cloud?”

“Because little as you can do there is less that I can.” Cloud choked, and Sephiroth saw the crystal drop of a tear fall into his tea, salting the sweet warmth. “I would mend your broken heart an’ I could, but mine too is shattered, and I cannot even wish I kept my distance, for now I know you wanted me as well. Oh, I should not have spoken to you that first day. I have only made us both miserable!”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth whispered into the silence that followed.

“I would not be taken from you Sephiroth,” Cloud gasped through his sorrow. “For my heart can be none but yours, and I will lose you as sure as you will lose me, as little as my heart matters in comparison to yours.”

“Do not speak so,” Sephiroth moved to his side, dropping to his knees before Cloud. “I did not intend to mock your heart’s sorrow, Cloud. I only…”

“I know,” Cloud said softly, his head still bowed wearily in sorrow. “Forgive my anger. It stems from naught but misery. I am sorry I have done this thing to you Sephiroth.”

“Never apologize,” Sephiroth said, lifting his hand to cup Cloud’s damp cheek softly. “For though it may be pain now, I would never do else but thank you for what you have given me, Cloud.”

“I will give you always whatever you wish of me,” Cloud whispered. “You will always be able to find me in the kitchen, Sephiroth. If you’ve need of me.”

“Oh would that I could clothe you in my livery and make a husband of you,” Sephiroth whispered. “I should never feel sorrow again.”

“Once or twice I should think,” Cloud smiled under his fingers, soft and trembling as Sephiroth’s fingertips ghosted across his lips in the shadow of the kisses they had not shared and had wished to. “I am not a pancea to cure all ills.”

“Not all, no. But a balm on my soul, I feel. Will it not be torture for you to stay here if I am wed? I would see you well secured in employment elsewhere if you wish.”

“And wonder always if you are well?” Cloud asked, finally lifting his tear-filled eyes to Sephiroth. “No. I shall stay here where I can ensure that cook spoils you quietly and you never run short of tea. If that is all I can be for you, I will be it gladly.”

“Always more than that.” Sephiroth withdrew his hand, setting it over Cloud’s and twining their fingers together. “Always more than that.”

They stayed there a long while, holding one another’s hands in Sephiroth’s room as it slowly chilled, the fire dying without being tended to. At last, Sephiroth stood to tend it while Cloud wiped his face on the tea cloth to cleanse it of his sorrow.

“Well,” Cloud said at last, taking a shaking breath. “I am here, and so are you. You may as well read me what vows you have prepared to woo the lady before your father rips your hide. Do not think I do not see the bruise that has blossomed on your cheek Sephiroth, for I have felt the sting of his hand more than once.”

“Would that I could tear his hand from him for the offense to your cheek.” Sephiroth said, turning to Cloud. “They are pathetic and empty words. You would hear them?”

“Perhaps only to mock them, but I may be of some assistance in this for you. Cook is mighty fond of love poetry, and reads it often aloud to us while we attempt to work. I believe it may have rubbed off on me somewhat by now.”

“I would not harm you with it...”

“Then you will not. Come, let me hear your drivel that I might revel in how much truer your love for me is.”

He was smiling playfully, but there was truth in his words. So Sephiroth read him his bland declaration of intentions, and felt the vice around his heart lessen at Cloud’s laughter over his weak words.

* * *

The girl and her family came three days later. Sephiroth’s mother had gotten only worse. Now her days were full of pain, and the doctor fed her brandy when she woke to settle it. Still, often her cries caught in the house, carrying past her door. Sephiroth was a ghost in his own home, waiting at every moment to hear another of her cries. Knowing that attending to them would do nothing. Silently wishing she would be silent. Fearing what it would mean if she was.

She could not be heard from the foyer where they met their guests, and Sephiroth did not know whether to be grateful or fear that distance that kept him from the sound of her cries and the knowledge that she yet breathed.

The young woman was as beautiful as the letters described, her eyes a vibrant green and her manner the soft and sweet nature of a flower. Her dark lashes were heavy against her cheeks as she kept her eyes lowered, and her smiles were small and uncertain.

Sephiroth did not love her, but he found himself concerned. She did not seem pleased any more than he did. Perhaps she was only quiet, he thought with a faint hope.

When she complimented, quietly, the horses she had seen from the road, Sephiroth jumped at the chance.

“Lord Gast,” He said, bowing to her father slowly. “Might I accompany your daughter to introduce her to our horses?”

“Without a chaperone?” Lord Gast said, eyebrow arching.

“Good my husband!” Lady Gast chided. “He is a nobleman, and hardly intends any impropriety! Let them become acquainted without their parents discussing business by their ears. Aerith, will you with him?”

“I should like to meet the horses.” Aerith said agreeably, giving her mother a sweet, dimpled smile.

Sephiroth offered her a courtly arm, and she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. But only until they were away from the watchful eyes of the adults.

“Forgive me.” She said, removing her touch from him.

“Nothing to forgive.” Sephiroth said, letting his arm drop to his side, straightening his coat as they walked together out into the fields around their mansion.

“You are not what I expected,” Aerith said to him, her hands clasped before her as if she were unsure where to put them. “I do not know what to make of you. Your words in your letters were pretty enough, and you are as handsome as the stories, but I feel you should know I will not love you.”

“You will not?” Sephiroth asked, glancing to her. Her chin was lifted and stubborn, her eyes alight with determination.

“I love another.” She said bravely.

“Well,” Sephiroth said, turning away from her to lead the way to the pasture. “I take some comfort in that, lady, for I cannot love you. My heart belongs to another as well.”

“Does it?” The woman asked. “Cold comfort then for me as well.”

“May I ask who your heart is promised to?” Sephiroth asked. “And why he has not challenged me for your hand?”

“He has no standing to challenge on,” she sighed. “He is a stableboy at my father’s house, though he is as true and honest and gentle a soul as I have ever known. I believe my mother suspects that my riding lessons have more to do with him than any horse. It is perhaps why she so suddenly latched onto this proposal. Forgive me for saying so, it is not that your family is unworthy—”

“There is no offense taken, Lady.”

“You may call me Aerith, you know. Despite ourselves we are betrothed.”

“In name only.” Sephiroth said. “I am sorry for your sorrow. I would not be the cause of it, but I have little choice.”

“And your beloved?” Aerith asked. “You cannot claim them rather than me?”

“Even were we of even station, which we are not, there is no church that would wed us, my lady. He is beyond my reach, and I cannot claim him.”

“Oh.” She breathed, and he flinched to have handed her such a weapon. He flinched again when her hand lighted gently on his arm.

“I cannot tell which of us is in a sorrier position, Sephiroth.” She said gently. “For it is clear we neither of us have made this mess, but do only lie in it.”

“So I fear. What would you have of me, lady, to give you some joy in your sorrow?”

“If Zack might be brought into our service?” Aerith said softly. “I would commit no indiscretions. Only ask that you treat him kindly, and allow me to see him every so often.”

“Would you permit me the same of Cloud’” Sephiroth asked, drawing up to the fence with her. “To see him and speak with him, and to know you will show him no disfavor?”

“Gladly,” she said softly. “I would not have our house be a tomb for joy, but rather a sanctuary for what happiness we can find.”

Sephiroth let a small smile escape onto his face, past the mask of indifference he had painted onto himself.

“He told me you may yet be sweet and kind, but I dared not hope for this kindness.” Sephiroth said, laughing softly.

“Which is your horse?” Aerith asked rather than replying.

“The frightening one prancing far out in the field. But nevermind him. Behold, a truly delightful beast approaches. This is Marvelous, and I am certain she is the most excellent donkey in this world.”

By the end of half an hour, they had found four books they had both read, and had both praised Marvelous for her ears and her snout and her manner. Sephiroth did not love the young woman, but he did see in her the kindred spirit Cloud had mentioned. Not in the way that he and Cloud were kindred, but in the way of siblings, he thought.

“Aerith,” he said, catching her arm as her parents called to her. “I would see you happy.”

“I would you as well.” She said, her smile turning sad.

“Perhaps we may yet be.” Sephiroth said. “Do not surrender, and do not yet accept. I will learn what I can of our circumstances. Perhaps you, at least, may be free.”

“You would take such a risk?” She asked softly.

“I have watched my mother waste away in a marriage without love.” Sephiroth said, his voice grim and sorrowful. “I would see you happy.”

Aerith embraced him then, and her parents were near close enough for Sephiroth to hear their shocked gasps. He only placed his hands gently against her back.

“I would see you happy too.” She whispered before stepping away at last.

Sephiroth caught his father’s smug look and felt a cold hatred in his heart at the knowledge that his father thought he was romancing a pure stranger for no reason but status and his father’s plans.

* * *

The study was off limits. Not even Hojo’s most trusted butler was allowed within to clean. Sephiroth was aware of this. It was one of his earliest memories of his father. Being beaten for coming to find him behind the closed door.

‘It’s only that it is dangerous inside, Sephiroth.’ His mother had said, her voice low as she stroked his hair through his sobbing, carefully not looking at his bruised face or bandaged back. ‘He worried for your safety.’

Sephiroth found no danger in the study when he entered. Only dust and darkness. He dared not light more than a long match for fear of the light alerting the groundskeeper. Or worse yet, Hojo himself. He moved quietly through the bookshelves, searching for anything that might be of use to him.

His father was a brilliant man. Sephiroth knew of his work only through studying his business dealings, but he understood it dealt with heredity and the selective breeding of plants. He knew from visits to other manors that other conservatories could not match theirs for size or scale or scope of life growing within. His father’s work was unquestionable. He was not here to read those books or notes.

He found dated journals and traced them back. They went for years and years and years. He selected the book that included his birth year, in the hopes of any starting place.

He was forced to light a candle, and hid behind his father’s desk, away from the window, feeling like a cheating child rather than a man on a mission.

He stayed up the whole long night reading what he found there with a feeling of ice sinking down into his bones.

When he could take no more, he set it aside and turned to the desk, staring down at the current journal. He knew if he moved it an inch Hojo would know he had been there.

He took it from the surface, dragging it down to the floor with him and reading through it with a feverish speed, feeling the impending sunrise like an approaching doom.

When he left the study, he took both journals.

* * *

He was waiting in the kitchens when Cloud arrived. He knew he must look like a man possessed, sleepless and disheveled, still in the clothes he had greeted Aerith wearing the night before.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked, balking and staring in alarm. The cook and servants entering with him froze as well, staring. But Sephiroth felt no threat in their eyes. Only worried curiosity. He could only hope he had grown on them as Cloud had promised he had.

“Cloud,” He said, finding himself strangely breathless, he blinked, turning his eyes to the woman at his side. “Is this your mother?”

The blond woman at Cloud’s side straightened, her expression hardening as Sephiroth approached.

“I am, sir.” She said, looking Sephiroth up and down with an edge in her eye that said she knew too much.

“I would ask you a favor,” he said. “I have reason to believe my mother is being poisoned, and is not at all ill in her own right. Or at least, was not when this began. I would ask you to stay beside her, and let her eat and drink nothing brought to her lest you bring it with your own hands. Will you do this for me?”

Soft gasps erupted from the staff. The cook looked faint. Cloud’s mother straightened her shoulders, drawing up with a hard light glinting in her eyes.

“What if the lord your father come?” She asked. “For he has insisted upon bringing her breakfast every morning.”

Sephiroth clenched his jaw, realizing at once that he should have suspected this long ago. The servants looked faint. Afraid. They thought he would be angry.

“Lock the door.” He said softly. “And withstand it only a little while. Once our company arrives he will not be able to insist. Can you do this?”

“I can.” She said.

“I thank you.” Sephiroth murmured. “And all of you. For I know you have protected my secrets and sorrows all my long life. I ask you now to trust me a little while. It will be a dark day in this house today, but if all goes as I hope it will lead to many brighter.”

“What did you do?’” Cloud asked, stepping forward. “Sephiroth?”

“I found the answers I was looking for.” Sephiroth said softly. “Cloud… I will not involve you in this. Please, stay away where you are safe. It will be over by tonight. Lady Strife, will you walk with me to my mother?”

“I will.” She said, and squeezed her son’s shoulder only once before following Sephiroth.

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” The cook whispered behind them as Sephiroth led the woman away and to his ailing mother's side.

* * *

Sephiroth let Hojo rattle the door to his mother’s chamber for a good long while before approaching. Letting the man’s ire rise as the poisoned breakfast cooled on the tray at his feet.

“Father,” He said softly. “I would have a word with you before our company arrives.”

“Not.” Gritted Hojo. “Now.”

“The door is locked at my request.” Sephiroth said, his words carefully chosen. “It will not open to you.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Hojo hissed.

“It would be a shame to let the breakfast go to waste.” Sephiroth said. “Why not eat it yourself, father.”

Hojo’s eyes widened behind his glasses, and for the first time in years and years and years, Sephiroth found himself a step ahead of his father.

“Just what stories have you been telling yourself, boy?” He asked, recovering himself.

“None that are not written in a hand not my own.” Sephiroth said quietly.

“Conniving, ungrateful,” Hojo hissed, his eyes narrowing. “Whatever you think—”

“Your time to make demands is over.” Sephiroth said, breaking over his father’s words, though it made his jaw ache from tension. “Now it is mine.”

“And what would you demand?” Hojo sneered. “My life? Your whore mother’s safety? That I turn a blind eye to your unnatural proclivities a few days more?”

“You will leave this house.” Sephiroth said, lifting his chin. “You will take your research, and your life, and your study, and your horses, and your snide condescension, and you will leave with them. You will leave my mother well supplied, and you will give to me the power to make the decisions of the estate from here forth. You may have the summer house till you find a new home, for mother never liked it there.”

“And I do all this for what?” Hojo barked in a laugh. “To avoid some simple accusation from a boy desperate not to be married off?”

“Not so simple an accusation when coming from a man with proof,” Sephiroth said. “Not only of my mother’s condition, but of your work. Its origins. The names overwritten in your quest for glory. The souls sacrificed to it.”

“It will do you no good.” Hojo sneered.

“No good?” Sephiroth questioned. “I could ruin you in three words. And if you do not do as I say, I will do exactly that the moment your guests step through our door. You have everything to lose.”

Hojo stared at him, scowling. Then his expression morphed into a cold, cruel smirk.

“I always suspected you were a bastard,” He told Sephiroth. “It was so hard to tell, when you take so entirely after your mother in your looks. But I am certain now. It is my blood that proves itself in you through this scheme.”

“Would that I were a bastard to be spared your blood in my veins.”

“I will have my journals back.”

“You will not. They will stay with me, and insure your cooperation until the end of your days. If you follow my instruction, that may still be decades from now. Otherwise, I feel there is more than enough for you to meet your end swiftly and neatly at the end of a noose.”

“Ruthless boy.” Hojo said with something closer to approval than Sephiroth had ever heard from him. “I will have your demands.”

“I have them written. You will sign, in duplicate, and take one with you so you may never claim to have forgotten what you swore this day.”

“It is a pity you are as you are.” Hojo said coldly. “My hypotheses in hereditary intelligence are proven in you, after all. Your offspring with the Gast girl would be yet another leap forward for the human race.”

Sephiroth did not bother to answer. He only pulled out the folded, sealed contracts he had drawn up the night before and gestured to the stairs.

“Come, father.” He said. “You will have time to read the clauses if we begin now.”

Perhaps it was the rush of success. Perhaps it was the signature agreeing Hojo to it all, written twice. Perhaps it was the rain, pouring down outside the window, the storm from the morning finally having broken through into a soaking downpour.

He lost sight of his father’s hand, and regained awareness of it only when the pistol was aimed at his head.

“Damnable boy,” Hojo whispered, “to have forced my hand in this. Years of effort wasted on you.”

“Father.” Sephiroth warned. “This will not go unnoticed.”

“Let them notice.” Hojo said. “You were as a man possessed, coercing me into a signature on these lying papers. I had no choice, for nothing would satisfy you.”

“The journals are safe. The truth will out.”

“I will find them. And burn them. It is a shame to end it like this. You were the culmination of decades of work. But no matter. Your mother yet has the strength to bear me one more subject, I believe. If my studies have been good for nothing else, I can at least dose Brugmansia in a tea to leave someone just on the edge of madness and death.”

There was someone moving in the corner of Sephiroth’s eye. He lifted his hand to Hojo in quiet supplication.

“Your journals showed you loved her once.” He said. “Why would you do this to someone you loved?”

“You should have read _her_ journals,” Hojo sneered. “For you’d have found your answer there.”

The figure on Sephiroth’s periphery bolted forward, and Cloud tackled Hojo to the ground. The gun fired, the report a thunder in the closed space, and the desk at Sephiroth’s right all but exploding at the shot.

The gun clattered away, useless as Cloud pinned Hojo down, lifting wild, terrified eyes to Sephiroth. Sephiroth jolted forward, aware that a gun was not the end. He saw the dagger in Hojo’s other hand. Saw the fury in his eyes as he glared up at sweet Cloud.

Sephiroth did not hesitate. In the days and months and years that followed he would quietly hate himself for that. He should certainly have hesitated. A good man would have.

But whatever kind of man Sephiroth was, he gripped Hojo’s arm before he could finish his motion, and drove the dagger back down into his own throat.

Cloud gaped at him. Stared and trembled and gasped as the body beneath him gurgled and twitched.

“Go.” Sephiroth whispered to him. “It will only be worse if you are here.”

“Sephiroth,” Cloud whispered, his eyes glassy with fear. “I thought…”

“You saved my life.” Sephiroth whispered. “Go to your mother. I will come to you when I can.”

Cloud pressed forward, wrapping Sephiroth in a hug. But already there were voices yelling, drawn by the gunshot. Cloud escaped, back the way he had come. Sephiroth sat heavily at the side of his father’s twitching corpse, and hung his head, trying to breathe past sorrow and rage and fear as the storm raged outside.

* * *

Lord Gast was a strange man, Sephiroth thought distantly as the long, arduous, miserable day drew to a close. He was a man who had arrived a house to which he had been invited to find his host dead and his host's son still stained by his father's blood. He had taken the information that the officials were on their way in good humor, and had asked only:

‘What did the old fool go and do to you?’

So Sephiroth told him. Told him and his wife as they stood staring at him. Handed them the journals numbly. Then the journals had gone to the policemen who arrived, their expressions confused and harried.

“Would you have me arrested?” Sephiroth asked wearily. “I surely killed him out of rage and sorrow. Though as the gunshot I hope can attest, he did at least attempt to kill me first.”

“I think our officers here had better take care of the body and call it a day,” Lord Gast had said, not unkindly. “The only criminal in this house is well dead, and you’ve done a fine job keeping the proof at hand son. I will wait till another day to ask about proposals.”

“Your daughter is already in love.” Sephiroth said. “You would do well to listen to her. Her chosen is not of noble blood, but I would make him so an’ it would please her and you both. Perhaps you could consider it my apology in all this.”

“Would you truly?” The lord asked, arching an eyebrow and smiling under his bushy mustache. “How would you go about it?”

“In honesty my lord, it has already been done. I drew up the papers that would prove him a member of my house and of the name Crescent. I would send them with you, if you will give me a moment to brave the library.”

“Better not just now,” Lord Gast said. “But I thank you. I wondered at what you and my daughter had been dreaming up outside. We shall speak no more of it today, for you look worn to the bone. Best, I think, for you to look to your mother and your house. It all falls to you now, my boy.”

“Indeed.” Sephiroth murmured. “I thank you.”

But he did not go to his mother yet, nor address the house at large. He stripped out of his bloodstained coat, leaving it to lie on the floor, and walked back, back, back into the kitchens. When he entered, the room went silent, though already it had been filled with hushed voices.

“He is out in the rain, my lord.” Said cook softly. “Pray you bring him in before he catches his death.”

Sephiroth stepped outside, out under the awning and onto the gravel path he first walked with Cloud all those many long days ago. The rain soaked through his fine thin shirt in moments as he walked slowly up the drive and to his Cloud, standing in the pouring rain with his head upturned and his eyes closed.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said softly.

“You should not be here with me,” Cloud whispered, his voice trembling. “I have forced your hand in a terrible thing. I meant only to protect you.”

“You did.” Sephiroth said softly, lifting his hand to Cloud’s pale cheek, stroking his fingers back into the wet tangle of his hair. His fingers coiled around the dark ribbon there, holding it tightly.

“My Sephiroth.” Cloud whispered, his voice choking. “I fear I have only made everything harder on you since the moment I met you. You are so far above me. So much more than I can ever—”

“My Cloud!” Sephiroth interrupted, stepping closer forward, resting his other hand on Cloud’s shoulder, bracing him. “I beg you look at me.”

So Cloud looked at him, his blue eyes ringed in red and squinting against the pain of his tears and the driving rain.

“Since the moment you came into my room and lit my fire, I have been less alone in this world than ever before in my life.” Sephiroth told him, holding him in place. “My every moment I spend thinking of you. Each line I read I wonder how you would like, each breath I draw I wish that I was drawing beside you. Your humor, your kindness, your spirit, they have bolstered me in these darkest days. And now you have helped me save my mother, and rescued me from certain death. Of all of these, which can you possibly think was a misery to me?”

“I,” Cloud whispered, though his voice was all but gone, “I do not know what to say…”

“Then I beg you speak with your actions, for I would hear your thoughts.” Sephiroth pulled against the ribbon, letting it free, setting Cloud’s hair loose in the wild rain.

Cloud did not hesitate again, but threw his arm around Sephiroth’s shoulders and dragged him in close. Sephiroth followed, dripping wet. His hand tangled ribbon and hair both as he cupped the back of Cloud’s head, his other hand surrendering his shoulder to wrap around his back, holding them flush together as Cloud at last kissed him.

It was a desperate kiss. All plea and adoration and fear. Sephiroth’s brows knit as he pressed all the closer, his eyes clenching shut as he savored the heat, even in the freezing cold rain.

When at last they parted, they did not go far, Sephiroth only hunching closer over Cloud to hold him against his chest as Cloud shuddered and gasped into his sopping shirt. It was impossible to tell what water that fell that night was tears and what was rain. But they did not go in again until they could control themselves once more. And by then, they were more than soaked to the bone, and both had to endure a lecture from Cloud’s mother and cook both.

But when they were pushed up to bed, Cloud’s mother ushered them both to Sephiroth’s room, and said nothing more of it than that.

They curled under the blankets together, and found sleep at last in each other’s arms only after sharing their second, and third, and fourth kisses.

Sephiroth decided then, his hair still sopping, the fire roaring, Cloud finally warming up in his arms. He decided to hell with the legacy, and the family, and his duty. He had found all that he wanted.

* * *

Sephiroth still carried the boneshard memory of his mother’s illness. It was by him every day as he watched her slow recovery. As he waited till she was lucid enough to tell her the truth. As he let her sob and rage weakly against him, for him, at him. The bone was porous and jagged with knowledge that she had nearly died while he stood by helpless. It woke with him each day, and settled down with him at night.

He also carried something far more precious. Something that he now realized he had not found, not picked up, but instead that had found and treasured him. For he was the jewel in Cloud’s palm, treasured and loved, woken up with every morning, and settling beside him every night.

And the texture of fear was not so daunting when held up beside that gentle love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Mad Max AU


	11. A Mad Max: Fury Road Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out in the wastes, Cloud and Avalanche eek out a living together. But when Cloud finds a stranger crucified on a tow truck... He can't help himself. Hopefully Avalanche won't mind him bringing home another stray. After all, that's how he ended up with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Mad Max spoilers, just borrowing the world for the 'favorite movie' prompt!

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

  
The thing that caught Cloud’s eye wasn’t so much the tow truck in the middle of the desert wastes. That was about as normal as normal got these days. You run out of gas, you leave the car and pray you get where you’re going before you run out of water too.

No, what caught his eye was behind the tow truck. The basin, glinting in the sunlight unsteadily. The movement of liquid inside it.

Cloud resisted the urge to lick his chapped lips under his handkerchief mask. Could be oil, he told himself. But oil in a basin? Could be a mirage, he added mentally, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes down through his binoculars, trying to decipher reality through lines of waving heat. It seemed like a weird mirage was all.

Could be a trap.

Of them all that was the most likely. Water out in the open, left to evaporate in the merciless sun? In this economy? Fat chance. Someone would have spilled blood for as much water as there seemed to be there.

Cloud lifted the binocs, scanning the horizon. Dunes. Sand. A ridge of red rock. More dunes. More sand. One tragic scrub brush, long dead but not quite covered yet.

Empty tow truck, facing his way.

Big basin of water.

Cloud lowered his binocs again and glared down at the tow truck, daring it to vanish. He glanced to his bike, considering his move here. Ride down on the bike, get spotted for sure by whoever was watching. Try to sneak down, probably get spotted anyway and be easier to shoot.

Hard choice.

He swung aboard the motorcycle heavily and gunned it, blazing down the side of the dune, kicking up a mohawk of dust behind his rear tire as he went. If his throat had been a little less dry, he’d have whooped in delight at the sliding thrill of the sand under his bike.

He found what the water was there for the moment he circled around the truck.

He pulled down his bandanna, looking up at the body tied by wrists and feet to the tow truck’s back. It was all over dust and cracked flesh. Not yet swollen, but soon to be.

“Got crucified, huh friend?” Cloud rasped, eyeing the body only for a moment. “Must have really pissed someone off to get this treatment.”

He looked to the basin of water, standing full before the bound man. Evaporating away while he dehydrated. Cloud shrugged and pulled his canteen free from his side, plunging it into the water with a shudder of relief when the liquid did not vanish.

The slosh of the liquid was music to his ears. The rasping gasp that followed less so. Cloud looked up with a sick displeasure towards the body tied to the truck, glaring at him as the man’s eyes cracked open ever so slightly, his mouth working in a pitiful attempt at making a sound.

“Ah hells.” Cloud muttered. “I was hoping you were dead.”

The man on the truck didn’t respond. His eyes were only slivers of color under sand-crusted eyelashes. His shirtless chest heaved once in a deeper breath drawn, then instantly seized in ragged, tearing coughs. Cloud regretted coming down instantly. Hell of a trap, snaring him in pity for a stranger in the wasteland.

“How long’ve you been up there, huh?” He asked. “I only ask ‘cause at this point it might be kinder to put a bullet through your skull.”

The stranger’s head lolled, dropping against his chest as he wheezed in the aftermath of the coughing fit. His hair looked strange, not blonde so much as sand coated. There was an awful lot of it, tangled and snarled up behind him.

“Shlanger.” Cloud cursed to himself, and filled his canteen the rest of the way.

He climbed the tow truck’s back with ease, far more familiar around the body of the car than the body of the person dangling off it.

“Here, look,” He said. “I’ve got water for you. You have to drink it if you want it. I won’t pour it down your throat. If you can, I’ll get you down. If you can’t, I’ll put you out of your misery, because I’m the best you’re getting, at least this close to Midgar. Judging from the position you’re in I’d guess you’re none too friendly with those Shinra siphoners.”

He was rambling. It was wasteful, talking so much. But it felt more so not to say anything, as he watched the man struggle to lift his head. Struggle to keep breathing.

He knew that sort of struggle.

He had said he wouldn’t help, but it wasn’t technically helping him drink to lift his head with one hand and put the canteen to his lips with the other. The man on the truck choked once as the water filled his mouth, then swallowed, deep and greedy. Cloud only let him swallow three times before pulling away, watching the man cough mud, a wild look about him as he shook and jerked against his bonds.

“You can have more if you want to throw up and kill yourself that much faster,” Cloud muttered, capping his canteen. “Still, you drank, so down you come. They’ll give me hell for this.”

He inspected the bonds on the man, found chains cinched tight around his arms, and hopped down off the truck, leaving him breathing raggedly, mud dripping off his chin and lips.

He returned with bolt cutters and set to work on his legs first, under the theory that if he was going to be dangling from a bond, it had better not be the one on his legs with him face first in the sand.

Work was easier than care, and Cloud put his weight into shearing the heavy chains. They were _way_ too nice to be wasted just tying someone up to die. He was careful to keep the chains as intact as possible.

“Why are those damn siphoners,” Cloud grunted, bearing down, “So dramatic about it all? Just use zip ties if you're going to do a murder. Everyone uses zip ties.”

The chain fell away with a crash at last, and the man let out a wheezing breath as his position changed, his weight hanging entirely on his arms. His head lolled to the side and Cloud paused, only a moment, pushing some of his hair away from his neck.

There was an awful burn there, only just beginning to heal. It was stark even against the tortured and sun-baked skin around it. The branded image of some kind of comet or falling star, scarred onto his throat. Cloud looked at it a long moment before pulling back, clicking his tongue.

“That’s no normal thief brand you have there, deserter.” He said coldly. “World-killer.”

The man didn’t respond. His head was hung, his eyes only barely open, his chest heaving with every breath. Cloud watched him a long moment before sighing and lifting his bolt cutters again.

“You’re lucky you’re so pathetic.” Cloud hooked the cutters through the chains around the man’s right wrist. “Or I’d question whether you’d just been branded to infiltrate the resistance.”

The bolt cutters did their work, one of his arms falling free. A grating sound escaped the man at last. A sound of pain as his weight fell solely onto his trapped left hand. Cloud watched his fingers twitch and curl, his body twist and struggle only briefly, trying to get his feet underneath himself.

Cloud just watched and waited until the man’s senseless struggling finally stopped. Then he put his bolt cutters to the final bit of chain and steadily pressed down till it gave way. He sighed as the man crumbled into the sand. There was blood on the chains, but Cloud picked them up anyway, sliding them into his hip pouch for safekeeping. He would find a use for such good metal as that, even as short as the links were now after his cutting them.

He made to hop down, then grimaced as he saw the wreck of the man’s back. The tangle of hair behind was longer than Cloud had thought, and some of it was still jammed so thoroughly in the joints of the truck that it was levering the man’s head off the ground even as he lay collapsed there.

With a sigh, Cloud pulled his knife from his belt, slicing away the snarled hair, grimacing a little in sympathy as the man’s head finally dropped into the sand. At least it wasn’t asphalt or stone. He bent over him, catching up the hair that hadn’t been stuck and slicing it away as well.

“Wouldn’t do to have it catch on my bike’s wheels.” He told the man, crouching beside him though for all appearances he had passed out once more.

He gripped the man’s shoulder, burnt so badly the skin was cracking and peeling away under his hand. He rolled him to his side to free his face from the sand and hummed in discontent to see him unconscious, sand coating his cracked skin and lips.

“Hey,” said Cloud, slapping the man twice, roughly, to rouse him. At the first glimmer of his eyes, Cloud set his canteen to his lips, tipping it slowly to let him taste the water. The change was immediate, his eyes widening and his body tensing. His hand jerked as if to take the canteen, but he was too weak by far. Cloud only smiled a little and tilted the water into his mouth, bit by bit, a swallow at a time, till the man had to pull away to breathe. When he did, Cloud let him go, allowing him to flop useless onto his back.

Cloud glanced up at the unforgiving sun and went back to his bike once more. He returned with all the jugs he carried, and a few other items that might prove water tight if he was lucky. He also carried a thick linen sheet, which he tossed over the man gasping like a landed fish in the sand.

“Catch your breath,” Cloud said. “You’ll have to hold onto me while I ride us out of here. You’ve got a minute or two while I stock up.”

If not for the man’s eyes moving to him, Cloud would have thought his words went unheard. He didn’t mind the silence. The man’s silence gave him time to think. Time as he filled all his jugs and his canteen again from the basin of water that had been left out. Then, because it was Shinra territory and Cloud could think of no way to take the rest, he lowered his head, dunking his entire face and hair into what remained of the water, scrubbing at the sand.

It was the closest he had come to bathing in nearly a decade, and he reveled in it.

When he surfaced, dripping, he glanced at the man and his poor linen covering. He walked over, taking the blanket off him, receiving nothing in response, the man once again dead to the world. But not _dead_ dead, Cloud noted by the rise and fall of his chest. Just as well, he supposed. He’d given him water now, and it would be a waste to have watered a corpse.

He shoved as much of the linen into the water as he could, till it had soaked up most of the remaining water. Then he threw it back over the man, spattering the sand around him with droplets. A raw gasp escaped the broken body, and the way his eyes flew open almost made Cloud snicker. He held his tongue though and stood very still, watching to see how the man would react.

For a long moment he only lay there, stiff, his eyes wide and his body trembling in exhaustion. Then his brows twisted upward in relief and his head fell back into the sand. His lips moved, mouthing a word that he could not voice.

“Yeah yeah,” Cloud said, waving a hand at him in response to his unvoiced thanks. “I’m scalping the truck for parts then we’re gone.”

Some of the car’s parts were in working order. Cloud took what he could, not rushing, but keeping half an eye to the horizon and his goggles safely off to keep from losing his periphery. What he could salvage he dropped into the thick quilt bag he kept strapped to the front of his motorcycle. Bigger pieces he dragged back to hook into the side compartments of his motorcycle. Each time he passed, he checked on the man out of the corner of his eye. Each time, he stayed still and unmoved, collapsed on his back in the sun, still surrounded by tendrils of his roughly cut hair as they pulled in the wind. The wet linen clung to his body, shielding him from the sun and providing some relief for the burns covering him.

In his position, Cloud could see the brand clearly each time he passed. That thick and awful scar against his slender throat.

When it was time to move him, Cloud nudged his shoulder with his boot, glancing around at the slowly darkening sands.

“Up.” Cloud said. “If you can move, move. I won’t injure myself carrying you, it’d just make us buzzard food of us both.”

Eyes opened again, just barely, squinting up at him. Cloud grunted and leaned over, grabbing a corner of the wet linen and roughly giving the man’s face a wipe, removing some of the worst of the sand, though it agitated his cracking sunburn. He didn’t so much as make a sound, but he was able to open his eyes a little wider when Cloud was done.

They were a bright, unearthly green. Great. Cloud was never going to hear the end of this.

“Up.” Cloud repeated, firmly.

To his credit, the disgraced Shinra Soldier tried. He shifted in the loose sand, struggling to roll over. To get his legs and feet underneath himself. He didn’t make a sound, but Cloud caught sight of his teeth bared in effort, blood-stained. He sighed, more at himself than anything, and bent down, hooking his arms under the man’s shoulders and dragging him towards the motorcycle before he could so much as get himself turned over.

“So long as you’re trying,” He muttered, trying not to be too embarrassed by breaking his own rules. With any luck the half-dead man wouldn’t remember any of this when he woke up properly as it was. “But there’s nothing I can do if you can’t hold on. Understand? Once we start driving we keep driving.”

The man looked more dazed than anything, his head lolling, his hand lifting dazedly to grip weakly at Cloud’s jacket sleeve.

“Steady on,” Cloud said as he noticed the man clenched his teeth, his straining muscles. The pain of the sand scraping on his sensitive skin might have been a little cruel, even if it was an unintentional cruelty... “Nearly there now.”

Getting him _onto_ the bike was the hard part. Cloud needed to be in front of him, to steer. The man was nearly twice his size, and it wouldn’t have done to try to keep him on the bike from behind. Cloud lifted, grunting in effort, and was relieved to find the man struggling to assist. Eventually he got far enough that he could lean the man on the bike, watching his muscles strain and tremble. His legs stuck and held fast, his breathing quick and ragged as he forced himself to stay upright. Cloud swung on quickly, shifting back to grip the man’s shoulders.

“Swing on.” He insisted. “I can’t lift you.”

Green eyes caught on his and held there, the man’s head drooping in exhaustion. It was with a herculean effort that he all but threw himself onto the bike at Cloud’s back, forcing his leg over with a grunt of effort. Cloud felt his bloody teeth against his neck as he snarled against the effort of it. But he was aboard, and Cloud dragged up the wet linen behind him, twisting to wrap it around his back, tucking it under his nearly-bare legs, the shreds of clothes he wore not nearly enough to keep the bike from burning him, even if they didn’t hit any trouble.

“There.” Said Cloud. “Hard part done. Now all you have to do is not fall.”

Easier said than done, he knew. But when he turned back and kicked his bike’s engine awake, he felt those trembling hands wrap around his waist, those too-thin arms clench around him as hard as they could. He glanced down at his wrists, finding them blood-stained and raw. He patted one of his hands twice before gunning the bike, taking off up the dunes as his half-dead rescue clung on behind him, trembling like a leaf and heavy as lead behind him.

* * *

To say Barret wasn’t happy would be like saying that the wasteland was a little too warm in summer. Cloud was fairly sure if he had brought home one fewer jug of water or one less quality car part that Barret would have slit the ex-Soldier’s throat as soon as he saw the meteor tattooed on his neck.

“What’re you going to do with him, huh?” Barret asked roughly. “We got enough problems here.”

“He’ll either pull his weight or we’ll kick him out or kill him.” Cloud said, stepping away from the man he’d laid out on the floor of their garage. The linen was still draped around him, mostly dried by the baking sun before the chill of the night settled in. “Same as you did with me.”

“That was a lot different, Spiky.” Barret grumbled. “Didn’t have ta do any nursin’ with you. This little enclave’s my responsibility. You get that? We barely have th’ food to go around as it is.”

“But we do,” Cloud said, crossing his arms. “I’m not askin’ much, Barret. Just let the damn Siphoner wake up well enough to make us an offer. It’d be wasteful to just kill ‘im when he might owe us a pretty favor for this.”

Red XIII wandered closer, his strangely lit tail waving behind him as he lowered his head to snuffle at their guest. He sneezed at the dust and sat back, inspecting him top to bottom with his strange, intelligent eyes. Once Cloud would have worried the great firecat would take a bite. Now he only waited to see what the firecat would think.

After a moment, he gave a low yowl and trotted away, his inattention the only answer Cloud needed.

“See? Red doesn’t think he’s any threat.”

“He’s baked to death. Probably won’t even last the night.”

“He can take my bed.” Cloud said. “I want to catalog the haul as it is.”

Barret sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his remaining arm.

“Ya got attached.” He accused.

Cloud scuffed his boot and scowled at the floor.

“What’d I tell ya?”

“Don’t name ‘em, don’t coddle ‘em, don’t bring ‘em home, but do no harm. But Barret—”

“And what’d you do?”

“Brought him home.”

“And?”

Cloud scowled deeper. “Might have coddled him a little.”

“Right.”

“To be fair, Tifa did it first.”

“Yeah. With you. Her kiddy pal. Yer project here’s got Shinra written all over him.”

“And he’s got ‘dead meat’ literally branded on his neck,” Cloud pointed out, nudging the man’s head lightly with the toe of his boot to shift the Soldier's chin out of the way of the brand. “Shinra left him out there to die, no doubt.”

“Well,” Barret huffed. “He’s here now. Do your catalogin’ beside him so we know he won’t be slaughterin’ anyone in their sleep. I ain’t having a Soldier runnin’ around unguarded with my little girl in the house.”

“He’s hardly going to be running anywhere.” Cloud said. “Would you at least give me a hand getting him inside? He’s heavy.”

“Shocker.” Barret said. “You bring home the strays, you take care of the strays.”

“Aerith!” Cloud yelled into the hideout. “Barret won’t help me with my rescue!”

“What rescue?” Aerith called back, instantly sounding alarmed, even as the thumps of feet on the wooden foundation of their hideout sounded the audience they were about to amass.

“Cheap.” Commented Barret.

“Wasteful.” Cloud accused.

Then Aerith was upon them. Or more, upon the fallen man. Though before she could drop to her knees by him Tifa was on her, catching her and drawing her back.

“That,” Tifa said, “is some mouse you’ve dragged home Cloud. I’d know that face anywhere. Ten years ago I watched him tear open a great hole in the earth with his own hands. You’ve brought us Sephiroth the world-killer himself.”

“Oh.” Said Cloud, frowning down at the man.

“Tifa, let me go.” Aerith said firmly. “He’s not burning any worlds right now, and I wouldn’t disrespect our Cloud’s haul by not having a look.”

She crouched beside him when Tifa released her, her hand coming to his face, pressing against his flesh, drawing her thumb over the cracking burns.

“Already healing,” She muttered. “How long ago did you find him?”

“Hours now,” Cloud said uneasily. “Not that long.”

“He’s a Soldier,” Barret reminded. “They heal fast from drinkin’ the planet’s lifeblood. Like she oughta have healed. Like she would'a if not for them.”

“Enough talk.” Aerith said. “Healing he may be but the floor of the garage is no place for a guest. Cloud, help me with him.”

So Cloud bent and did as she asked, lifting him from one side and she from the other, carrying his ragged form into the house with Nanaki following, snuffling at the blanket and its pale red bloodstains.

* * *

“Are we taking a vote or what?” Cloud asked, hours later, elbows deep in grease as he worked through his haul by his bedspread. “Or do you want to argue for another seven hours?”

“Oh please, let’s let ‘em argue.” Cid grumbled, taking the next of the small motors from Cloud, turning it over and inspecting it. “Keeps ‘em outta trouble.”

“The sun’s already rising and Marlene will be awake soon.” Cloud pointed out. “If you’re going to do a murder, hurry up and do it before she’s around to see you.”

“We ain’t murderin’ anyone.” Barret objected.

“Tossing him out’s murdering him, clear as glass.” Cloud muttered, glaring up at Barret.

“You know where I stand.” Aerith said.

“Organic Mechanic sides with the Soldier.” Vincent said dully, tallying votes for them.

“I’m against it.” Tifa said, her arms crossed. “Once a world-killer, always a world killer.”

“Executor stands against.” Vincent drawled.

“With.” said Cid, raising his hand.

“Against.” Said Barret.

“Reeve?” Vincent prompted.

“I stand out.” Reeve said. “Since I started as a spy myself I don’t think I can make a non-biased decision in this.”

“Eh, that was years ago.” Barret muttered, waving a hand.

“Cloud?”

“With, obviously.” Cloud said, scowling down at his work.

He glanced behind himself to the man passed out on his bedspread. Aerith had spared some of their water to wet a towel, resting it over his forehead and eyes. His lips had been softened with some water too, making their awful cracks look a little less terrible. He couldn’t tell if he was awake or not.

Vincent stood, arms crossed. He frowned at the floor, considering. He could lock them in a tie until they got word from one of their missing ones or Reeve weighed in as the tiebreaker, or he could make the call that saved him.

“Not enough information.” Vincent said at last, his arms crossed. “I will not vote until we’ve heard from him. Decision postponed.”

“Damn it!” Barret hissed.

Cloud let out a breath, lowering his head. He was cradling one of the chains, he realized, and quickly put it down, clearing his throat.

When he glanced back again he was just in time to watch the man swallow hard, and let out a very slow breath through his nose. Cloud suspected strongly he’d been listening, but said nothing.

One by one the others faded away, drawing their doors shut, pulling curtains, stealing what privacy they could in their slightly ramshackle hideout. Cloud let them all go, pulling out his guns and knife to do cleaning and inventory while his supplies were out. Aerith gave him a knowing look before she left, but it was warm and affectionate.

“Wake me if he’s in trouble.” She murmured. “We’ll patch him up yet, Hero.”

“Stop that.” Cloud complained, though couldn’t help grinning at her when she stifled a laugh at his expense.

When they were all gone but him, he reached out, lifting the corner of the damp cloth covering the stranger-- no, 'Sephiroth’s'--eyes. He watched him close them rapidly, feigning sleep.

“Mmhmm.” Cloud said. “I thought so. Here, since you’re up.”

He cupped the back of his neck, lifting his head slightly. The man sucked in a short breath, but Cloud only put the canteen to his lips, waiting for him to catch up to reality before tilting some of the water into his mouth. The man swallowed, and swallowed again, before tilting his head away, refusing more.

“Suit yourself.” Cloud said, capping the canteen. “Aerith says you’re to eat. She’s the woman who sided with you. Can you?”

The stranger’s lips parted as if to speak. His mouth worked, but only the slightest whisper escaped him.

“Couldn’t catch that, so I’ll take it as a yes,” Cloud informed him.

It was damn hard to find anything edible some days in the wasteland. Cloud was grateful to have his friends. Aerith could make the dead earth grow, and Tifa was a hunter unparalleled. Between their work and Cloud’s scavenging, they stayed fed.

Aerith had left him with some small bread rolls she had baked from her latest little crop of wheat. It was not her dearest crop, but it would grow in rougher soil than the others. Cloud tore free a piece now, touching it to the stranger’s lips. He didn’t move at first.

“Eat.” Cloud said, firm and frowning. “I would have left you to die if I was going to hurt you.”

Sephiroth opened his mouth, though he seemed reluctant. Afraid. Cloud pressed the bread between his lips and watched the way his body twitched at the flavor. He peeked under the wet cloth once more, and met a shocked green eye, staring over at him. Cloud smiled in quiet pride. He knew just what a revelation it could be to taste something good in the wasteland.

Still, he saw the effort it took Sephiroth to chew and swallow. The next piece of bread he dipped into his canteen, softening it in deference the man’s weakness.

He pretended not to notice the hitching breaths and trembling in the ex-Soldier as he fed him carefully, bite after bite, until he fell asleep in between crumbs of bread.

He had barely eaten half one of the rolls.

Cloud found himself staring at the skin of his neck. Barret had been right about the Soldier healing. His skin already looked more whole, less like a cracked ruin. He had already observed the dead skin falling off of him like the scales of a lizard. He noted that the brand was not healing so thoroughly. It was shiny and pink rather than the stark red of a fresh injury, but it was clearly a scar. A thick and vicious one, as brutal as the ones who had given it to him.

Cloud wondered what he had done. If he was as Tifa and Barret said, if he was the worst of the World Killers, why had he been abandoned to die? It wasn’t as if the Shinra had any remorse, any sense of wrongdoing. There was no regret in them, for still they lived in their towering city and pretended that the world was going on as normal even as their people died by the thousands and their planet withered. Even as the world went lawless and mad with thirst and hunger.

He turned back to his work on his guns once he was certain that Sephiroth wasn’t going to give him any answers that night. He cataloged his bullets and made note of what he would need. He had made a scavenging trip to an old-world craft store a while back and found hundreds of little notebooks. He wrote now in one with a pastel purple flower on the front and green paper.

He checked his guzzaline consumption and sighed. He’d have to find a new source soon or run out of ways to fuel his bike for the journeys. They were running low, and his extra weight on the return trip hadn’t helped.

He prayed silently to the goddess of bullets and the spirit of the road. To give him one more day of riding on a nearly empty tank, and one more bullet in the chamber than he needed, always.

* * *

Cloud was aware of the engines roaring before he was aware of being awake. He was on his feet, gun in hand, and heard others running, joining him towards the front of their base. He stared out at the wall of their hideout, built into the cliff side and neatly hidden. He heard the engines stop outside.

“I make seven cars,” Tifa called from above them. “Troops. Shinra. You were followed, Cloud.”

“Do you make him for bait?” Barret asked, glancing at Sephiroth.

“No.” Vincent said. “I make him for a prize. They want their trophy back. They’ll come armed. We either take them down before the make it inside or they end us.”

Cloud cursed, loudly, and kicked Sephiroth awake. The man jerked, twitched a hand up to pull the cloth off his face. He stared up at Cloud, bedraggled and bewildered. His dead, burned skin flaked away with the motion like a reptile's. Cloud grimaced at the sight of it peeling off, leaving him beautiful beneath its ugliness. Nearly whole.

“Up.” Cloud insisted, pushing past his discomfort. “Up now.”

Sephiroth looked to the guns in their hands and forced himself upwards. Cloud heard bones crack and his breath stutter. When he looked up again, his hair was falling into his eyes, shining dull silver in the light of their apartment, much of its dust left on the pillow. Aerith slipped towards them.

“He’s in no shape to fight.” She said firmly.

“Seven cars, Aerith. We need the hands.” Cloud argued. “Take this. Can you shoot?”

He pressed a gun into Sephiroth’s shaking hands, and watched him curl his fingers around it. His whole body was still shaking, but his grip was sure. He nodded, his gaze intense and fixed.

“Fine.” Aerith huffed. She pushed forward, dragging her fingers familiarly through Sephiroth’s hair. The man jerked again at the touch, but Cloud was relieved to see that the gun stayed firmly pointed away from every one of them.

Aerith ignored his discomfort, tying his hair back out of his face in a swift but neat bun.

“You’ll need your eyes.” She said firmly. “Don’t die.”

“Come on.” Cloud said to Sephiroth. “Up. Now. No time to waste.”

He moved to the window, hearing the rough breaths of the man behind him struggling to stand.

“What do you make of ‘em?” He called to Barret in the other window as he pulled their rifle from its crate near the window.

“Nothing good.” Barret growled. “Far more trouble than he’s worth.”

“Complain later.” Cloud said firmly, sighting down the rifle and glaring down the sight. He could see them now, searching for the way up, their movements quick and frantic as they hunted a way before dying.

Movement to his side drew his gaze, and he watched Sephiroth press his back against the wall by the window, the gun raised and a dark, competent look on his face. His finger was off the trigger, but he was leaning in slightly, silently counting their opponents, Cloud thought. His hand was still shaking, the red line where the chains had held him stark. Cloud glanced to the shining scar on his neck, and to the look of distant, exhausted competence on his face. The look of a Soldier called back into battle one time too many.

“Make your bullets count.” Cloud instructed, glaring at Sephiroth.

Then he sighted down the rifle and waited for his moment.

The first man who looked their way Cloud shot straight through the head with a furious precision.

It opened the floodgates of chaos. Gunshots rang, and their attackers thundered up at once, no longer milling about hunting for an opening, but withdrawing into formation, putting down their Plexiglas masks. Cloud cocked his rifle again quickly, but one of them was already sighting down at him. Sephiroth stepped out from cover, aiming and squeezing off a shot. He was ducking back behind the wall just when a shot impacted the stone, sending pieces flying.

Cloud took out another of the men. Seven cars, he noted, but far more men than that. A small battalion. At least two, maybe three per car. They were going to run out of bullets before they got them all. He squeezed off another shot, and Sephiroth stepped out from cover once more to draw fire and take a shot himself. The pistol wasn’t accurate enough for the distance, but it bought Cloud the time to reload.

There was a passiveness to the battle. Something unsavory and terrifying and miserable in it. Picking off men like scavenging creatures, knowing at any minute their chance to pick them off would be gone, and that with every missed shot their chances of survival dwindled.

When Sephiroth’s gun clicked empty, there were still well more than seven men left. And they had found the entrance.

Cloud sucked in a breath, dropping the useless rifle and reaching for his dagger. Behind him, Sephiroth moved in a rush.

Cloud turned, anticipating a blow, for Barret to be proven right, for their rescue to prove just as dangerous as he’d been warned.

Instead he watched Sephiroth stoop and grab the bolt cutters from Cloud's inventory cloth. The banished Soldier turned back to the window with grim focus. He staggered as he straightened, thrown off balance by even that small weight. But there was a look to him that spoke of nothing standing in his way.

“Wait.” Cloud said.

Sephiroth’s cool eyes flicked to him, and Cloud thought for just a moment he saw a shadow of a smile. Then the man vaulted out the window like a madman, his hair flickering behind him as he fell. He tumbled, graceless, onto the ground. Every one of their attackers turned on him, guns drawn but startled by his appearance.

Sephiroth came up swinging.

Cloud didn’t let himself gape. He vaulted out after, his dagger clutched in his hand. Sephiroth’s first swing with the bolt cutters disarmed two men and sent a third to the ground missing a chunk of his face where the cutters had scored him.

Cloud stabbed the first man quick and easy in the back of the throat, shoving him to the ground out of the way. The second was ready for him, gun rising to block the strike. Cloud kicked his knee out with a sickening snap then spun into a stab, slicing deep in his belly. He stepped forward again, catching only flashes of Sephiroth, holding his own. Sephiroth, with his feet bare in the sand, and his stance wide, the bolt cutters kicking up dust in an arc as he dragged them around in another sweeping swing. Sephiroth with blood on his teeth as he snarled at the Shinra attackers.

Cloud almost died to the third man, so distracted was he by the spectacle. He grabbed the gun at the last minute, shoving the muzzle aside. The heat of the gun firing past his head scalded the hell out of the hand he was gripping it with and the gun’s action snapped one of Cloud's fingers with a sickening snap. It was nothing compared to the knife in the eye the trooper who'd tried to shoot him took.

Above and behind them, someone scored a shot. Probably Vincent. Another of their opponents went down. There was a lot of screaming, Cloud thought distantly. He got his knife out of the trooper's eye and into another man’s heart, but lost it when that guy dropped, his grip wrenched away by his twisting fall.

The butt of a gun impacted with his cheek and he staggered. He got his hands up to block a killing strike, taking a knife through his hand instead of his face. There was a furious grunt nearby, and he looked towards it in time to be thrown the bolt cutters. He kicked the man attacking him away and caught the bolt cutters with his good hand, slamming them down into the man’s neck. He took the gun off the corpse under him, ready to defend Sephiroth after the man had given up his weapon.

But there was no one to shoot with it. The three living troopers were running. Running hard. Sephiroth was standing, knees locked, dripping sweat and blood. Cloud lifted the gun and fired on the retreating Troopers. Above and behind, someone took another couple of shots, and the screaming from the ground behind him went silent. Cloud held back a retch. He hated this part of it all. Hated this part more than anything. Finishing off the wounded.

“Hurt?” He asked, glancing to Sephrioth's waxen face, glancing over his shaking form.

Sephiroth shook his head once, staring into the middle distance. Then he keeled over so fast Cloud didn’t even have the foresight to catch him before he was dead weight on the ground.

* * *

“Worse than _you_ are.” Aerith growled, her fingers on Sephiroth’s pulse as the man lay sprawled in the center of their hideout, once more dust-covered and pale as death. “One day–one _day_ away from burning to death in a desert and he’s running around with bolt cutters knocking heads.”

“I know.” Cloud’s hands were still shaking with adrenaline, and he was stuck between glee and horror. “Wasn’t he amazing?”

“He’s half dead is what he is.” Aerith scolded. “Don’t you encourage that behavior when he wakes up! We had it under control.”

“We didn’t.” Tifa added, sounding uncertain. “That was a lot of raiders at once.”

“Good news, it’s a lotta new cars at once too.” Cid called from the garage.

“With a fair amount of supplies.” Vincent agreed.

“Great! Let’s send out invitations for the next group.” Barret yelled, glowering at the world in general before looking back to Aerith. “You think he’s gunna come around?”

“Eventually. It may take a few hour–oh, no, he’s awake. Hello there.”

Cloud peered towards them, his bullet inventory forgotten in the wake of the news. He heard a soft, strained sound, and instantly abandoned his task. He caught green eyes, and watched as the man let out a breath and relaxed back in place from where he’d been struggling to rise against Aerith’s restraining palms.

“Cloud.” He whispered, his eyes fixated and his expression exhausted.

“Hi,” Cloud said. “You saved our skins.”

“Saved… Mine first.” Sephiroth said, each word sounding like a terrible effort. Hs voice grated in his chest and throat, as if the wasteland was inside him, stifling every word. Cloud watched the tendons under his brand strain with effort.

He didn’t speak more than that, his breaths devolving into wheezing coughs, even when Cloud took over for Aerith, feeding him sips of water and sitting at his side.

That night, no one objected to his presence. By the next morning, whatever he was, he could sit up and hold his own canteen. He was already restraining himself from drinking as much as he wanted, and Cloud saw the survivor in him. Watched his eyes flick to the number of people in the room before setting the canteen aside.

“We can spare some more than that.” Cloud said mildly.

“Better to save it.” Sephiroth rasped in return.

“We wouldn’t have had it at all if not for those bastards at Shinra. The nerve of them, using water for torture while the world dies for thirst. No offense, I know that was you they were torturing.”

“No offense taken. It was sorry waste. I’d have been happy for you to take it even if you’d left me behind.”

“Glad I didn’t. Those troopers would have gutted us.”

“They wouldn’t have come.”

“They would have eventually. What did you do?”

“To get strung up?”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to leave.” Sephiroth said, sounding exhausted. “They would have me still carve more life from the planet. Would have me maintain order through the deaths of the suffering rather than the sharing of resources. I have done so much evil. This I could not.”

“Tifa called you world-killer.” Cloud said, smiling when Nanaki came up to nose at his arm, begging a piece of bread out of him, even though he was supposed to be eating it himself.

So far all he’d done was feed Sephiroth little pieces any time he seemed forgetful enough to accept them.

“She is not wrong.” Sephiroth said roughly. “You vouched for me, but should not have. I am not a good man.”

“There are no wholly good men left.” Cloud said with a shrug. “Nor any entirely good women. The world is dying. All that are left are survivors.”

Sephiroth was watching him, his green world-killer eyes bright. Cloud watched him back, inspecting his face.

“What will you do now?” Cloud asked. “You’re free, like you wanted. Though perhaps not without price.”

He reached out to touch the mark that so fascinated him, expecting Sephiroth to pull away. He froze in surprise when his fingers came to rest against the meteor emblazoned on Sephiroth’s throat.

Sephiroth swallowed, but did not pull away. He looked at Cloud as if he were water.

“You had nothing to gain by helping me.” He said in that rough, ruined voice.

“Sure I did.” Cloud said. “Turns out you kick ass with a pair of bolt cutters.”

“You had no way of knowing that. You cut me down only because I could drink. And even that you helped me with.”

“Oh, I was very much hoping you wouldn’t remember all that.” Cloud muttered, though he kept his hand on the vulnerable scarred skin at Sephiroth’s neck.

“I owe you my life.” Sephiroth said.

“I don’t deal in life debts.” Cloud said flippantly. “If I did I would owe every soul under this roof one, you included. There is no counting favors anymore. Not in this world. If you want to live, you take what you can get, and you don’t question it. So don’t question it. I helped you. What will you do now? We’ve spare cars it seems, if you would have one.”

“I would rather stay.” Sephiroth said after a long moment. “If I can be of use.”

“How do you feel about plants?” Asked a voice nearby, making Sephiroth startle nearly out of his skin. He almost lost his balance seated, and Cloud caught him by the shoulder to steady him.

“Aerith.” He scolded. “Eavesdropper.”

“Plants?” Asked Sephiroth, bewildered.

“Green things, growing out of the—”

“I know what they are. What of them?”

“Not much of a gardener I think, Aerith.” Cloud said.

“Well, he can be taught,” Aerith said flippantly. “I taught Zack after all.”

“Zack?” Repeated Sephiroth, a strange note in his voice.

“Any knowledge of mechanics?” Cloud asked.

“Only of war,” Sephiroth said, shaking his head quietly, “and battle. But I can be of use in those things, and I can learn. Your exterior defenses–I could help ensure you don’t get caught again.”

He sounded anxious, Cloud thought. Worried. He’d already been cast out once, he realized. Cast out from a place that had made him a killer. Now he had killed for him. For them. He was waiting to know whether he’d be strung up again.

“Perhaps for now.” Cloud said. “But as you said. You are tired of war. I am certain we can find a place for you without it in time.”

“Is the New Fool awake then?” Tifa asked, entering the room with her combat boots in hand. “Good. We’ll need the hands to clean up the mess outside.”

“New Fool?” Sephiroth asked, brows furrowing.

“Everyone has a place,” Tifa said, straightening. “I’ve downgraded you from World-Killer to New Fool. Cloud was our Fool before, but he’s been downgraded too.”

“What?” Cloud scowled. “How did I get downgraded from Fool?”

“Now you’re Lovestruck Fool.” Tifa accused. “Go get New Fool some shoes, would you? Surely at least one of those corpses doesn’t need theirs.”

Cloud sorely hoped that the sand would swallow up his blush. But from the low, rasping laugh that caught in Sephiroth’s throat, he doubted it. His only solace was the hand that rested over his, ever so briefly, and the ruined voice that whispered for his ears only.

“I should be so lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Coffee Shop AU


	12. Coffee Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tifa and Barret's passion project Seventh Heaven Cafe has finally opened. But the very day they open the sign goes up for the Shinra Coffee about to open across the street.
> 
> Cloud wants to give them a piece of his mind. But the manager's never there. It's always just the same employee. The same VERY HANDSOME employee. Working alone. And damn it all, Cloud's starting to worry about him...

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

Seventh Heaven was a dream ten years in the making. They had scrimped and saved for their first year’s rent. Had purchased pieces of equipment one at a time, storing them in their tiny apartments until they had a building. Had tracked down investors and friends and patrons. Had learned all they could and more. Now, finally, Tifa’s dream was about to be a reality.

They opened their doors on the same day that the huge new banner went up across the street.

The banner proclaimed "Coming Soon: Shinra Coffee!" in their trademark green with their mascot, a strange inhuman woman, emblazoned in white above it. She smiled cruelly down at them past her one red eye and her long, flowing hair.

It took all of their combined efforts to keep Barret from tearing it down. Even as Cloud and his friends focused on trying to get a handle on the rhythm of an open coffee shop, it was hard to ignore the words.

“Oh my god, they’re opening a Shinra over there!" Some customers were saying. Or others: "That’s so cool, mom can send me ShinraBucks straight from home. Free coffee!”

More than once he had to deal with a customer trying to order one of those things that wasn’t actually a drink, but that Shinra had convinced the world was standard. He heard Tifa patiently try to explain that no, cappuccinos didn’t come in large. Heard Aerith gently correct that no, ‘Frappe’ wasn’t actually Italian for ‘super sweet icy blended coffee.’

By the time they had closed for the day, Cloud was fairly sure every one of them was thinking along similar lines. Shinra was going to be much, much worse than an annoyance. And it was a good thing they hadn’t opened a bar, or they’d have all gotten wasted.

“We made a good impression on our soft open.” Tifa told them all firmly, her expression set. “I know they’re big, and I know it’ll be trouble. But we’re not a chain, and we’ve got a fucking amazing place, and a hell of a fine staff. We’ll make a run of it yet.”

In the three months before Shinra Coffee was ready to open its doors, they made a run of it. Brought in local musicians to play for tips and a portion of the day’s sales, honed their cappuccino foam decorations till each of them was a master of at _least_ the rosetta, the heart, and the tulip.

“Where we’ll win is in our personality,” Tifa had told them. “Focus in on that, not on what we can't control.”

Cloud had taken some extra time working on his foam art. He’d started practicing on cups of stale coffee before they threw them out, not wanting to be wasteful but needing to have at least something to offer. He knew it had been a risk for them all, bringing him in at the end just because Tifa vouched for him. He didn’t want to let Biggs or Wedge or Jesse or Barret or any of their friends down.

The day Cloud slid his elegant swan design across the counter to a customer, Tifa shot him a knowing, affectionate smile.

The customer had snapped a photo instantly and dove into their phone to sing its praises online. They tagged Seventh Heaven in the post, and used so many exclamation points it left Cloud flushing. He quietly saved a screenshot to his phone.

And then their head start was over. Shinra opened.   
  
The bunting went up across the street, and the balloons, and the signs. There was a live jazz band in the street, and the big glass doors were propped open. The line stretched down the block and out of sight around the corner.

Tifa closed Seventh Heaven’s doors tightly and cranked up the music she was playing. There were only a few customers that day. It was an anxious and unhappy afternoon. Not exactly an auspicious start to their new neighborhood atmosphere.

Tifa stubbornly kept the cafe open, and halfway through the day Barret grabbed a chalkboard and jotted down ‘Need a coffee while you wait for your coffee? Stop on in!’ and placed it defiantly outside.

It had roused some laughter from the people waiting in line, and a few had trickled over to try them out. Cloud and Tifa both slapped Barret on the back when he passed by in congratulations for the plan.

If they were going to make it, it wouldn’t be on friendly terms. Cloud listened to Tifa call coffee orders to him, and he whipped them together like a Soldier on a mission. He glanced up, eyes narrowed, at the store across the street. This was going to be war.

* * *

The fancy new sign outside of Shinra the next week read:

**Selling more than “Atmosphere”**

Cloud felt cold fury build in his chest. They hadn’t even kept their joking ‘wait for coffee’ sign out more than a day. And now there was a professional banner hung outside their opponent’s door that must have cost at least as much as a month of Cloud’s pay. Especially with him voluntarily working a little unpaid to help keep the place afloat.

Tifa had a plan, of course. She was brilliant, and Cloud had never doubted her. But it would take time and money for her to get them a liquor license to let them whip up alcoholic cocktails and coffees, filling a niche in the market Shinra couldn’t touch without major changes from their corporate office.

The problem was surviving long enough, staying open long enough. A small coffee shop that closed down, even if only for a few weeks, would probably never open up again. The moment the doors closed for even an extra day more there was danger.

_Shinra_ wasn’t in any danger, Cloud thought bitterly, glaring at the sign between his drink orders and cup washing. They had a main washer in back, but it was just as easy for him to do them by hand so long as the flow of customers stayed as small as it had been.

“Focus up, Cloud.” Aerith instructed him, waiting at front of their main counter for another customer to arrive. “Why not try one of my new cookies? They’re chai spice, and I think I hit just the right balance this time.”

“Maybe in a minute.” Cloud muttered, tugging at his apron strings. “Do you think you can man the bar alone? Just for a second.”

“I don’t know.” She said, crossing her arms. “Are you going to do something stupid?”

“I’m just going to ask them to take it down.” Cloud said shortly. “It’s rude, and I don’t want Tifa to see it when she gets in.”

“There’s probably no one there who can make that call, you know.” Aerith said. “But go give them a piece of your mind if you want to, Cloud. Just don’t make us look bad, okay?”

“I would never.” Cloud said, bristling. “I'm completely professional. And _very_ nice.”

“You can just say that you’re going to get yourself a Moogleccino, you know.” Aerith teased.

Cloud threw his apron at her as he stormed out the door.

“That’s not even a thing!”

The Shinra Coffee Shop looked like _every_ Shinra Coffee Shop. Cloud, like everyone, had gone there once or twice. Had faced an airport on too little sleep and succumbed to the convenience or ended up at a study session there in college or accepted a drink from there from a friend with kind intentions.

He had never been in the same Shinra twice, but it didn't matter. They were all the same. Chrome and black, like the whole thing was some sort of spaceship. Huge glass doors and windows that let in too much natural light for how shiny the interior was. Accents painted a bright green.

It was instantly recognizable. It was also utterly empty of decor and spirit in a way that Seventh Heaven never had been, even before Cid had finished up building their tables. Soulless and stuck-together. A recognizable facade placed over the reality of the building’s construction.

It was also literally empty, Cloud realized. Not of customers, unfortunately. He was hovering at the back of the seven person line. The patrons weren’t antsy, but there was only one man behind the bar. His head was down at the register, even as the little reheat oven beeped its completion. He reached out, pulled it open, still speaking to his customer about their order. Cloud could only stare at his face, handsome and calm and empty. There was a deadness about him that Cloud recognized from years of customer service.

Cloud glanced around, looking for his backup. His support crew. At LEAST his manager. But as the moments ticked by Cloud's discomfort slowly settled into shock. He stepped out of line, gesturing the people who entered after him to go ahead. The man behind the counter slid between machines and customers, easy as breathing, taking the next couple’s order even as he started steaming milk for the previous drink.

Cloud stayed in the corner, watching him move, watching him work, watching no one come to back him up. He stayed for a long time, waving person after person into line in front of him. The sheer competency of him. The soulless perfection with which he moved through the process, despite his complete isolation. Where was his backup, Cloud thought. Where were his other baristas?

He saw it when the man cast a single, exhausted glance to the clock on the wall before turning back to his work. And the last bit of Cloud's anger evaporated.

He turned and walked back out of the shop, crossing the street in a swift jog.

“Welcome back.” Aerith called. “You were gone a while. You didn’t yell, did you?”

“Can I take one of your cookies over?” Cloud asked, already pulling out one of their little to go bags.

“Are you using me as bribery?”

“There’s only one guy over there Aerith. Just one guy. And, I mean, holy shit he’s killing it, but he looks like it’s murdering his soul. I have no idea where that poor dude’s backup is. I thought he might like a cookie though.”

“Dear lord.” Aerith said, leaning over the counter and frowning across the street at the clearly busier coffee shop. “What a nightmare.”

“Guess some people called out sick?” Cloud said. “Anyhow, it’s okay, right?”

“Of course. Even if he works for Shinra, us baristas have to stick together.”

Cloud shot her a grin and vaulted the counter this time on his way out.

“Food surface!” Aerith called after him, making the man with the goatee in the corner chuckle. He was often there, just sitting, working in one of his notebooks. He wasn’t really talkative, but he listened. They didn’t mind because he hadn’t seemed to mind so far.

Cloud walked back into the store, joining the line rather than jumping ahead of it to interrupt the man’s flow.

“Good afternoon,” The man said to each customer ahead of him, his voice calm and in control even as he worked enough for three people. “What can I start for you today?”

He’s going to ask you that, Cloud’s traitor brain mentioned to him. What are you going to say?

He didn’t have a good answer before the man’s green, green eyes were on him. His name tag said “Sephiroth." He'd had to write it very small to fit his full name on the little piece of plastic. Cloud felt his face heating up.

“Uh,” he stuttered, “Just… we noticed you were here alone. So. That’s for you.”

He set the cookie on the counter and turned to escape without waiting for a reply.

“Hey.” Sephiroth said, and Cloud went stiff. What a weird thing to do, he scolded himself. What a really, really weird thing to do.

“You work across the street?” Sephiroth said, not pausing in the milk he was steaming. He was doing it by ear, his eyes steady on Cloud.

“Yeah, at Seventh. Uh, hope you enjoy it! It’s, uh, Aerith’s special recipe. Thought you could use… Yeah. Um.”

“Aren’t you angry?” Sephiroth asked, tilting his head.

“Are you the general manager?" Cloud asked. "Or in charge of advertising?”

“No. I’m a barista.”

“That’s what I thought. So no, we’re not angry at you. Hang in there man, you’re a freakin’ machine at this.”

He was treated to the sight of Sephiroth cracking a surprised smile. Then he escaped, not making eye contact with any of the patrons.

“You really did it,” Aerith commented, her chin propped in her hands when Cloud returned to their nearly empty coffee shop. “I thought you might bail. You’re awfully red though… Is he cute?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Cloud blurted. “Let me see how your rosettas are coming along while we hang out, it’s time to toss the coffee and brew a new batch as it is.”

“Goodness but aren’t you suddenly dedicated to your work.” Aerith teased, grinning. “Fine, show me one more time how to do it properly and I’ll prove to you once and for all that my latte art is not to be challenged.”

She nearly made a design before she drowned it in milk, and Cloud let himself relax a little, laughing with her at her work. But his eyes kept drifting to Shinra Coffee, wondering if that Sephiroth guy’s shift was finally over, or if he at least had some support yet.

The banner stayed up, and Tifa’s expression when she arrived for her shift was enough to deflate Cloud’s worry for the stranger and remind him of what he ought to have been worrying about. Which was the line of at least seven people at the Shinra at any given time, and Seventh Heaven’s eight total customers sipping hours old coffee and poking at their books and computers.

He didn’t mention the man alone behind the counter to Tifa. Only took his break when she asked and spent the rest of his shift making sure there wasn’t a single fingerprint on any of their equipment or Aerith’s beautiful, mostly-untouched dessert case.

“It was never going to be easy.” Tifa told him with a weary edge to her voice.

Cloud had almost forgotten about it by the time eleven was rolling around and he was working on closing up the shop. He was about to close out the register, their final late-night customers packing up to go home, when the bell over the door chimed. Cloud looked up to say they were shutting down, but snapped his mouth shut at the sight that awaited him.

It was the man from Shinra, his silver hair loose, and his uniform exchanged for a leather jacket and a cream shirt. His eyes traced over the interior, a curious expression on his face.

“Um,” Cloud said, feeling his face heat up. “Hi. Sephiroth, right?”

Sephiroth looked over, blinking at him.

“Long shift?” He asked.

“Could ask you the same,” Cloud said. “I got a good break in the middle, though. Were you by yourself over there all day?”

“Not all day,” said Sephiroth, which wasn’t really an answer. “I wanted..:”

He hesitated, his expression uncertain. Tense.

“How about a drink?” Cloud offered. “Can’t give you whatever a Moogleccino is, but I’ve got to dump the decaf anyhow and I’d just as soon fix you up a cafe au lait.”

“You don’t have to work for me.”

“I’d like to, though. If you’ve got a second. You kind of seem like you came to talk?”

“I came to apologize.” Sephiroth said.

“Yeah, that’ll go down better with a cafe au lait.” Cloud chuckled, pulling down a mug and venting the water from his steam wand, glad he hadn’t shut it down for the night yet. “How’d you like the cookie?”

“I only had half,” Sephiroth said.

“Oh… Uh, not to your liking?”

“What? No. I saved half for tonight. We’re not supposed to eat on shift, but I managed to sneak a little bit. It was good enough to risk.”

He’s perfect, Cloud’s mind thought unbidden, and he bit the inside of his cheek in silent retribution. Do not look at his perfect jawline, he scolded himself. Do not look at those cheekbones or those beautiful eyes, you’ll end up gawping while he’s trying to talk.

The hiss of the steam wand in the cold milk was bracing.

“I’m glad,” Cloud said, shooting him a smile. “You really were rockin' it, but man what a crazy shift. Was the rest of your crew out sick?”

“There isn’t a rest of the crew,” Sephiroth said slowly. Cloud was aware of his eyes on his technique, and allowed himself to add a slight flourish as he finished off steaming. Then Sephiroth’s words sunk in.

“Huh?” He asked, glancing to Sephiroth. “You were alone.”

“Yes.” Sephiroth said dully. “I’m capable of it.”

“I mean, I’m capable of some crazy stuff in dire circumstances but that’s just… It’s busy all the time over there! I mean, _we_ don’t even leave folks up front for more than an hour or so, and it’s not exactly business central here.”

He poured the milk into the partially filled mug as he spoke. Let his wrist follow automatic motions, sliding together a simple rosetta, his hand tracing slowly over the coffee, his wrist making the smallest movements back and forth to create the beginning of petals. He pushed back at the end, drawing a stream of milk down the center of the foam design, sinking its centerline to draw the pieces of foam together.

It was only when he set it up on the counter that he realized Sephiroth was staring.

“You can do the latte art thing.” He commented, sounding impressed.

“I’m sure you could,” He said, waving a hand. “I saw you working. You were amazing. Seriously though? Just you?”

“Not the whole day. I get a little break too.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Cloud asked, leaning against the counter. Sephiroth was still just looking at the coffee, though his hands had reached down to close around the smooth ceramic cup.

“They opened the store in a rush.” Sephiroth said, haltingly. “I think they’re still catching up on getting the staff in.”

Cloud went still at the implications, his lips tightening.

“Which,” Sephiroth said softly, “is why I came to apologize. I’m… Good at my job. But I don’t like this, and I’m sorry. It was very kind of you. And this is as well. I don’t… “

“Hey,” Cloud said, shaking his head. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. It’s your job, man. I get that.”

Sephiroth was silent a moment, then let out a breath, finally lifting the beverage to take a small sip.

“That’s marvelous,” He murmured softly, eyes lifting to Cloud. “You’re good.”

“Heh. Some time come by when I’ve got fresher ingredients to work with.”

“Okay.” Sephiroth agreed. “I will. But for now, I think I’ve kept you past closing.”

“Eh, it’s fine.” Cloud said, waving a hand. “I appreciated the company. So, you know. If you wanted to stop by again some evening.”

“I would like that.” Sephiroth said, stiff and awkward, taking another sip of his coffee, his eyes thoughtful.

He finished his coffee in silence as Cloud closed out the register, humming softly to himself along with the music. It was coming from his own phone, so he knew it well enough. He was aware of Sephiroth leaning against the counter, looking around the building. It gave him some quiet pride, having that beautiful man who’d been so corporate and untouchable moments ago looking around his coffee shop like he thought it was beautiful.

“Thank you for the drink.” Sephiroth said after a moment, setting down the mug carefully. “And for the treat. It really… It… Made my day.”

There was an awkward truth in his words, and Cloud smiled warmly at him.

“I’m glad, then.” He said. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

“May I—” Sephiroth started, though he cut himself off, frowning quietly. Considering. “May I have your name?” He finally concluded.

Cloud flushed brightly at his slip. Honestly, reading a guy’s name off a name tag instead of introducing himself…

He wiped his hands quickly on his apron then offered his right to Sephiroth to shake.

“Cloud,” he said quickly, “Cloud Strife. Sorry about that…”

“It’s quite alright.” Sephiroth said with a smile, taking his hand. “It has been a pleasure, Cloud Strife. I’m glad to finally know my neighboring barista.”

Cloud felt the ghost of his touch on his hand long after he’d left with a final thanks. He had to fight the childish urge not to wash his hand.

He closed up the shop feeling like he was floating, and grinned all the way home without fully understanding his own reasoning for being so happy.

* * *

He opened the store whistling the next day, ignoring the passive aggressive banner outside Shinra. He pulled out the outside chairs, and felt a thrill of elation when he spotted Sephiroth unlocking the doors across the street. He waved, though he instantly felt silly for it. Sephiroth spotted him just as he gave up, and gave him a warm smile and a hesitant little wave of his own.

Cloud pulled out their chalkboard, and changed it to read ‘Now selling coffee in addition to atmosphere!’

The day dragged by the same as the days before. But at the end of it, just as he’d hoped, Sephiroth stepped inside.

“It’s no homemade cookie,” He was saying before the door had even closed behind him. “But I brought one of those cream cheese brownie things. They aren’t bad.”

“You didn’t have to!” Cloud said, though he brightened at the gift.

“I wanted to.”

“Well… Split it with me over a cup?”

“Can I watch how you do that foam trick this time?” Sephiroth asked, already hovering near the bar, holding the Shinra branded to go bag awkwardly.

Cloud smiled warmly.

“I’ll do yours and you can try with mine.” He said warmly, pulling open the fridge under the counter to grab the milk. “But if you brought a snack I’m making us proper decaf lattes.”

“I love these mugs.” Sephiroth murmured, fiddling with the wide cup Cloud set in front of him.

Cloud grinned at him in approval.

Sephiroth could handle steamed milk, no doubt. With just one observation, he made a shaky but respectable rosetta in Cloud’s foam. He seemed embarrassed by the effort, but Cloud snapped a picture on his phone with a smile.

“So interested in embarrassing me?” Sephiroth muttered.

“Course not.” Cloud scoffed. “Looking forward to the before and after once you’ve had a couple more chances to try.”

Sephiroth’s smile was almost shy, but clearly pleased. They stood on either side of the counter, nibbling at the over-sweet but passable treat and sipping on the smooth, warm coffee in the slightly chilly evening.

* * *

It became ritual before either of them had noticed. Waving to each other in the mornings, meeting up after their long, long days. Cloud noticed the changes slowly. The way Sephiroth’s shoulders seemed a little hunched when he thought Cloud hadn’t seen him in the mornings yet. The way his eyes drifted and he blinked heavily when they met in the evening.

“Still no backup?” Cloud asked a few days later.

“It’s not forever.” Sephiroth said wearily, gesturing down to the cup of espresso before him. “Show me how to do the tulip again before I try?”

The next morning, Cloud took an extra minute with the chalkboard. He’d gotten there a little early. He drew a steaming cup of coffee, a foam tulip on its surface. He wrote his words swirling with the steam. When Sephiroth arrived, it was to find a drawing of the latte art he’d done the night before and, written above it ‘Coffee almost as amazing as you are’ and Cloud grinning at him warmly.

“Flatterer.” Sephiroth said from across the street, though he looked pleased. He seemed lighter and less miserable than he’d been moments ago, walking up to work.

“Kick ass today, Sephiroth.” Cloud said warmly. “See you tonight? Aerith’s going to try out a coffee cake and she promised to set aside a piece. She’s desperate to meet you one of these days.”

“She’ll have to stay late.” Sephiroth chuckled.

Aerith arrived at work that morning fifteen minutes late, holding a Moogleccino.

“He’s _adorable_.” She mentioned to Cloud, sipping on the overpriced and over-sweetend drink. “And you weren’t kidding about the intense competency. He put this monstrosity together while taking care of three other people. Don’t worry, I apologized for ordering it, I didn’t realize how involved it’d be.”

“That’s what they look like?” Cloud asked with a horrified expression. “No wonder he likes latte art. Come look at the one he did last night!”

“Wait, let me guess, it was a tulip.”

“Uh…”

“My sweet Cloud, you are an open book.” Aerith laughed, hugging him tightly, though briefly enough that Cloud didn't have time to wiggle away. “Don’t worry. The coffee cake will definitely be worthy of flirting over.”

“I’m not flirting!” Cloud objected. But even as he did he glanced towards Shinra, noting with a wince the huge group stepping inside together. On their way to a study session without a doubt.

It was busier in Seventh Heaven than it had been, Cloud noted later that day with a smile. He wondered if his sign had actually been a good move. A lot of people took pictures of his latte art, and he couldn't say he wasn't pleased with the attention. He stepped up his game, curving swirls and sweet birds and delicate fiddlehead ferns into people's foam.

It was a fun shift, and some of their regulars hung out close to the bar to chat some, having been there for long enough now to start feeling like part of the family. Cloud felt a swell of hopefulness. A bit of joy. Tifa arrived in a delighted mood, pulling up their review page to show them that so far they had five stars across the board. Cloud caught her hand, scrolling back up one picture and flushing brightly.

Anonymous had left them a glowing five-star review a week ago, but Cloud recognized the rosetta on the coffee and the dark lighting. The first latte he’d ever made Sephiroth…

That evening he started in on the foam for Sephiroth’s latte early, steaming it with extra care. He glanced to the clock, nodding in approval. It should be finishing up just as Sephiroth arrived. He tapped the metal pitcher twice on the counter, steady and firm, giving it three swirls counterclockwise before tapping it again. He set it aside for just a moment, pulling the decaf espresso while he let it rest.

When he set to it, with a toothpick held in his left hand, ready for detail work, he didn’t look up again for quite some time.

He leaned back from the coffee cup a little while later, catching a small red heart-sprinkle he’d stolen from Aerith’s bakery on his toothpick. He gently lowered it to the bottom right of his design. It formed the dot beneath the question mark.

'Date me?' The latte’s surface asked, delicate and sweet. Cloud dusted just a little sugar over the design for a final touch of sweetness. Then he looked up to the door, his heart pounding in his chest in excitement.

But Sephiroth didn’t come.

Cloud closed out the register. Swept the floor. Cleaned the glass, even though he didn’t really have to at the end of his shift. But there was nothing.

He went behind the bar, trying not to feel crushed. Trying to fight back the tears at the corners of his eyes. Feeling like an idiot.

Soft tapping at the window caught his attention before he could finish cleaning out the coffee cup.

Sephiroth stood outside, a dark cap on his head, still wearing the Shinra uniform that he looked so awkward in compared to his normal outfit.

Cloud all but ran to open the door for him.

“I thought you weren’t coming!” Cloud exclaimed before he could stop himself from sounding like an idiot. “It’s late, Seph, won’t you have a hard time opening tomorrow?”

“You work the same hours,” Sephiroth pointed out with a weary smile.

“I nap on Tifa’s couch in the office sometimes.” Cloud argued with a shrug. “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”

Sephiroth gave him a stark, weary look.

“Can I sit a little while?” He asked softly. “It was a long day.”

“Of course!” Cloud moved to his favorite table, pulling the chairs down from where he’d set them on top, making room for Sephiroth to sit. The man slumped into a chair at once, dropping his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

“How about a latte?” Cloud offered.

“I don’t want to steam any more milk.” Sephiroth muttered.

“I’ll just make one for you tonight,” Cloud chuckled. “It doesn’t have to be a lesson. You take your time.”

He went behind the bar and whipped one up, even though it meant he’d need to backwash the machine again and clean a few more dishes. It was already approaching midnight. He found he didn’t much care.

When he returned, Sephiroth was slumped forward on the table as if he was about to fall asleep on it, his legs splayed lazily under the table. So long, Cloud found himself thinking, admiring the view a moment before he thought better of it and mentally fussed at himself.

He set the latte down in front of Sephiroth.

“This is beautiful.” Sephiroth said wearily, staring down at the simple rosetta.

“It’s the first one you learned.” Cloud chuckled, sitting at Sephiroth’s side. “Hardly special.”

“I always think they’re special.” Sephiroth said. Then his lips turned down in a frown that was almost a pout. “I am so tired of Moogleccinos. I’m tired of secret codes for small and large.”

Cloud laughed softly, lifting his hand to pat Sephiroth’s back gently in comfort.

“I know,” He said softly, warmly. “Aerith said she at least apologized for ordering that moogle thing.”

“There’s no such thing as a large cappuccino with one shot, Cloud.” Sephiroth bemoaned. “That’s just hot milk with a shot in it.”

“Ugh, they ask us for that too.” Cloud chuckled. “I mean, it probably tastes good, but still.”

Sephiroth glared down at his drink, and Cloud let his smile fade quietly, till it was honest and a little sad. His hand rested firmly on Sephiroth’s shoulder, grounding him.

“I’m tired of it eating my life.” Sephiroth muttered at last, staring into the coffee.

“There’s nothing you can do?” Cloud asked. “To get, like, transferred to a different store or something? You’re really amazing Sephiroth. They should be bending over backwards to keep you happy.”

Sephiroth stared at the latte he hadn’t so much as sipped. He blinked hard, swallowing.

“My boss,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “told me to stop coming here after work. He’s afraid the customers will notice.”

“What?” Cloud blinked, stiffening, his hand clamping down on Sephiroth’s shoulder without his volition. “He doesn’t get to comment on what you do outside of work!”

Sephiroth stared down at the table, saying nothing.

“How did you get stuck with all this shit?” Cloud asked, forcing his hand to relax on Sephiroth’s shoulder.

“My dad owns the local franchises.” Sephiroth muttered. “I started young, and now…”

“Now?” Cloud prompted.

“It’s all I’m good for.” Sephiroth muttered. “It’s what I know and what I’m good at. And he knows it. So he just…”

“Your dad?” Cloud asked softly.

“He opened that location to shut you down.” Sephiroth muttered. “He wants a monopoly on the town’s coffee, I guess. Which is sort of the whole Shinra thing, so… You should see the training videos. They’re a nightmare.”

“I can only imagine.” Cloud muttered. “Sephiroth, that’s terrible.”

“That’s why I was late.” Sephiroth muttered. “I walked around the block a couple times in case he was watching.”

“I’m serious, he can’t tell you what to do.”

“No, but if he makes my life any busier or more stressful than it is right now, I might just explode.”

“How many hours a week are you working?” Cloud asked, frowning.

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth muttered. “I don’t count. I’m technically an associate manager, so I’m salaried. I just work what they want me to.”

“They can’t be paying you enough.” Cloud said firmly. “Why don’t you—”

“Did I mention that I’ve worked there my whole life?” Sephiroth muttered. “I don’t know anything else. But I’m the best Shinra barista there’s ever been. That’s worth something to me. Besides, my father would never let me hear the end of it…”

Cloud frowned, slowly letting his hand slide down Sephiroth’s arm. The man shot him a sad, sorry look, before looking down to his latte.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. “I want to help. I do. I love this place. Coming here after work is…”

His eyes lifted as he looked around the walls, taking a slow breath.

“But I need my job.” He finally finished. “And I can barely keep up as it is. I don’t know if I can keep coming by.”

“Oh.” Cloud said softly. “So… I won’t see you anymore then?”

“I can still wave to you in the mornings?” Sephiroth whispered in offer, his brows twisting. “I don’t… I’m not trying to… Cloud, don’t cry…”

Cloud swallowed around his tears.

“It’s not fair.” He whispered, standing from the table to go get a tissue before he got snot all over the nice clean table top.

By the time he turned around again, the bell was chiming softly and Sephiroth was gone.

* * *

Cloud was late to work for the first time the next morning. He didn’t mind. It meant he didn’t have to wave at Sephiroth when they walked into work. He set up the outside seating, and pulled the chalkboard out. But he didn’t know what to write on it. He stared down at the blank grey slate so long he almost missed opening.

He left it blank and empty in the corner, and finished setting up.

Everyone got tulips or hearts on their coffees from him. He couldn’t handle doing a rosetta, much less anything more elegant or complex. His mind was numb with unhappiness. If only they were doing well, he could maybe have offered Sephiroth a way out. But as it was they were barely keeping their current staff paid. Barely breaking even as a business venture.

Everyone noticed Cloud’s mood, he was certain, but his friends knew him well enough to give him time. Tifa finally approached him after he’d nearly broken down over his foam not quite standing stiff enough for their regular--the one with the goatee--who was hovering nearby. He looked as worried as Tifa was for all appearances.

“It’s not fair,” Cloud had said then, feeling his voice break, and knowing it was unprofessional, and furious at himself for it. “They’re working him to death over there, and now his boss is getting onto him for coming over to visit after shift, so he… I…" He dragged in a breath. Scrubbed at his eyes. "I need to walk around the block.”

“Go on.” Tifa urged.

Cloud left before he could shatter. He scrubbed at his eyes, not letting himself look at Shinra as he passed it, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. He walked till he could breathe again, and forced himself to turn back towards work, burning with shame as much as sorrow.

He blinked, seeing goatee regular walking into the Shinra Coffee when he returned. He cringed internally, hunching up quietly and slipping inside.

“Did I lose us goatee guy?” He asked the moment he walked into the building.

“You can take a little longer break if you want to,” Tifa said, drying a glass. “And no, Reeve just said he had some business to handle.”

“He went across the street,” Cloud said, frowning. But sure enough, when he glanced to the guy’s usual table–Reeve’s usual table, he guessed–the computer was still there. “But… okay I guess. I’m sorry, Tifa.”

“Oh Cloud,” Tifa signed softly. “I’m just sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you in to get you stuck in a situation like this.”

“What, falling in love with the enemy?” Cloud asked, rounding the counter and taking a steadying breath.

Tifa was silent a moment. Then her hand rested on the center of his back gently.

“Yeah.” She said softly.

Cloud tried harder. He forced himself through a shaky rosetta, and tried to catch the feeling of easy competence that had let him make such cute art the other day. He thought of latte art with an elegant font and an invitation that could never have happened, he guessed. It still hurt. He wished he hadn't taken a picture of it... He knew that meant he'd see it again sometime.

Goatee man returned a while later and shot Cloud a warm, soothing smile. Cloud nodded in gratitude to him, and when Reeve ordered a new drink Cloud put in a special effort to make sure it looked lovely.

He forced himself to focus on the work, and when closing time came he hurried through it, pushing himself to get everything closed up and put away on time.

But it was barely past eleven when the door pushed open. Much earlier than usual. Cloud tensed, lifting his head. Sephiroth stood there, still in his uniform, down to the green apron with the white embroidered woman glaring out at him.

Cloud thought maybe he should say something harsh. Like ‘we’re closed’, or ‘oh, so _now_ you’re here on time.’ Instead he just looked at Sephiroth and said “You came back.”

Sephiroth was silent a moment before moving slowly forwards.

“I got a visit today,” he said, slowly and softly. “From the district manager.”

“Did I get you in more trouble?” Cloud asked in a mutter, shoving his hands into his apron pockets just to have somewhere to put them.

“You did not get me in any trouble, at any point.” Sephiroth argued, shaking his head slowly. “He told me he’d heard there were some suspicious business practices going on and he wanted to look into it. Cloud… We’re closed until further notice.”

“What?” Cloud jerked his head up. “Oh, Sephiroth, I’m sorry! Will you be okay? What can I do?”

“Oh, no, you don’t understand,” Sephiroth lifted a hand to forestall Cloud’s concern. “I’ll just be going back to my usual branch. Working my normal hours again while this gets figured out. I… Suppose word got around that there was only one barista. And it turns out it’s hugely against company policy.”

“Does… That mean you’ll have a little more time for, you know, stuff that isn’t coffee?” Cloud asked softly, hopefully.

“I should hope so,” Sephiroth chuckled. “Dropping back down to forty five hours a week sounds heavenly. “Though I’ve been instructed to take tomorrow off while they work out the details. Reeve was insistent about that. So I thought…”

“Reeve?” Cloud asked, blinking. “The guy with the goatee?”

“What?” Sephiroth said. “You know him?”

“He’s in here every day.” Cloud commented, tilting his head. “Tifa calls him our First Regular. Which… Oh my gods, he totally went to check in because I cried in his coffee.”

“You what?” Sephiroth asked, looking alarmed.

“I mean, not on purpose!” Cloud objected. “That's not a service we provide! Just… I was thinking about… And I didn’t have you to look forward to tonight… And there was the latte the other night, and I just… I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

“Hey,” Sephiroth said softly, stepping forward. “There was never a chance I wouldn’t come to see you again, when I could. I’m sorry for running last night. I couldn’t… I’m not…”

“Go out with me?” Cloud blurted. “If you’re off tomorrow? I don’t think Tifa would mind covering for me at closing, and I’ve already worked too much this week. We could catch a movie maybe? Or, uh, get… Some co…ffee?”

Sephiroth stared down at him, then split into a broad, happy grin.

“Coffee sounds great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Circus AU


	13. Circus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three days ago the circus tent went up. It should have been wonderful. Him and Sephiroth and Zack performing. Instead, Cloud finds himself staring at a burning tent, and filled with a sickening certainty that Sephiroth is still inside.

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

Three days ago, Cloud had dragged a cooler from his trailer, pulled out a drink, and sat down on it. It was tradition for the performers to watch the show hands putting up the quarter poles for the tent.

Three days ago, Sephiroth had joined him, his sunglasses firmly in place and his feet learning the ground of their new setup with slow, steady motions. He’d been smiling and steady and relaxed, leaning into Cloud’s heat like the snake he dressed up as for show nights.

Three days ago, they’d sat together watching the tent go up, mostly silent. Though like all of the crew, they’d joined in the whistling and yelling encouragement when at last, at last, the green-striped walls rolled down.

Now...

Now Cloud stood fixed in the same spot where they’d been sitting then. But now he stood alone, gaping, watching the tent burn.

His only thought, horrified and all-encompassing, was how Sephiroth had looked the night before. How he'd been staring out at the tent in the darkness. How grim he’d seemed. How miserable.

He started running, pushing past the gawking onlookers. He had no evidence. No reason to think so. No proof.

But his gut said Sephiroth was inside that flaming tent. So he ran.

* * *

Five years ago, Cloud Strife became a legend in his own time and actually did it. He ran away to the circus. He doubted anyone really noticed other than his mom. And really, since he told her and she knew where he was, he didn’t know if it even counted as running away.

But he came to the circus, young and feeling exceptional. Certain (as he would later learn so many would-be performers were certain) that he would blow them all away. That he would earn his place in a single audition, and be where he was supposed to be.

Instead he got laughed at by the ringleader. Still, they were already on the road, and the man had agreed to have Cloud along as an extra show hand.

“If you pick up enough tricks while we’re traveling, I’ll consider it.” Mr. Shinra had said, tapping the side of his nose with a finger. “So watch close, learn fast, and work hard, my boy. You’ve already got the first making of a star. Know what that is?" He didn't wait or Cloud to answer. Only leaned closer and whispered. "That you were willing to leave it all behind.”

He winked at Cloud and turned back to his work. Cloud had felt a sickening mixture of hope and fear; joy and misery. He’d left it all behind, and gained so little in return. But if setting up the tent, running the ticket booth, and working maintenance for a year was all it took to get under those lights…

He was willing.

He found it enchanting in ways he hadn’t expected. He learned fast alright, following the lead of Shinra Circus's rough and tumble show hands. They called themselves ‘Turks’, and Cloud felt fortunate to work beside them. He learned how the quarter posts were arranged, how they stored the seating that seemed so stable and permanent when the tent was up, how they organized the camp. He learned to avoid the freakshow but not the freaks–They were lovely and clever people, hilarious and rowdy and interesting every one. It was their manager Hojo who was the creep. They taught him where to sit to see the best sunrise while building, and how to climb the quarter posts.

After the tent was set up and the circus was officially 'in town,' advertising for however many nights they would perform started up. That usually meant a day or two lull for the show hands. They put posters up all over town, sure. Spread the word to any townies who'd listen. But they were quieter days than the sweating almost-endless toil of setup.

Those were the evenings Cloud got to sit under the stars and watch the acrobats practice. Got to watch them bend and twist and laugh. Watched them lift one another, and teach one another, and practice together, half-drunk and easygoing. Watched them cinch what they called a ‘slackline’ between trees, and take turns playing on it. They called it practice, but it seemed far too fun for that, all of them laughing, bouncing, tumbling over one another as if they weren’t balancing on an unsteady tightrope.

It was there he met Zack, who took him under his wing, helped him learn where to start. Drew him into the circle instead of watching from outside. Had him stretch for them, and commented on his promise with a bright, sunny grin.

It was at one of those gatherings that he saw Sephiroth first. A rare visitor from the way the other acrobats reacted. His silver hair shone in the light of their little bonfire. When Sephiroth joined them his sunglasses were perched on top of his head, but he slid them on by the fire before Cloud could catch more than a glimpse of his strange eyes. There was something about his pupils…

The acrobats had egged the quiet man on until he capitulated, joining Zack on the slackline, bouncing experimentally once or twice before sliding into an easy split, letting Zack pull front and backflips over him while he stretched out there, getting a feel for the line and sliding his hands over his legs, working out some invisible tension. When he was ready to join in, Cloud gaped as he slid to his feet without the use of his hands. He didn’t step, or roll, or shift. He just… Reversed his slide. The same way he’d dropped into the split. The strength of the movement left Cloud breathless.

Watching him tilt forward to stand on his hands on the unstable, shaking line stole what breath he had left. Especially when Zack started swinging it slightly under Sephiroth, testing his balance out. In the middle of one of the swings Sephiroth lifted his right hand. In the middle of the next he swapped to his left, legs delicately curved above his head.

Cloud had instantly been enamored.

That night when Sephiroth was done, having turned somersaults with Zack on the slackline till the fire was dying low and Zack had worn himself out, Cloud slipped away after him.

“Um,” he said, uncertain, “that was really amazing. Can I ask—”

“You’re new, right?” Sephiroth had asked, turning towards him. His sunglasses were off again, he was holding them in his hand, but he only opened his eyes to look at Cloud a moment before letting them fall closed again.

“Uh, yes sir.” Cloud stuttered.

“Sir?” Sephiroth asked, and laughed softly at him. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, like the ringmaster’s had been. Only a little surprised. “What’s your name?”

“Oh! Sorry. Cloud. I, uh, I came to the show when you were in Corel?”

“And here you still are, camped outside Gold Saucer. Did you fall in love with the tent so quickly, that a one night stand in Corel was enough to bring you along?”

“Oh, I didn’t actually get to see the show.” Cloud said, shaking his head. He cleared his throat when Sephiroth tilted his head, clearly ready to be moving on. “I, uh, left home because I heard the circus was passing close, and… I’d wanted… It’s stupid.”

“Don’t let Zack hear you say that.” Sephiroth scoffed. “It’s the same way he started. You ran off to join up. Let me guess, you’re working with the Turks now?”

“Yes. I was hoping—”

“Don’t ask me to teach you.”

“What? No. I can’t even pay you for lessons! I was just wondering if I could watch you practice some time?”

Sephiroth opened his eyes again, squinting at Cloud a moment.

“Hm.” He said, shifting, canting one hip to the side and propping his hand on it as he hesitated there. “Interesting. Alright. But let me come to you. I live down in the freakshow, and Hojo doesn’t like visitors.”

When Cloud returned to the acrobats, it was as though he was in a dream.

“Woah, Cloud, is your head spending time with your namesake?” Kunsel asked with a grin from behind his constant masquerade mask.

“He called me interesting.” Cloud muttered, smiling dreamily at the fire.

The crew of troupers laughed, and Zack slapped him on the back fondly before dragging him up to try the slackline for himself. Cloud ended up with dirt in his teeth from falling off so much, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Five years ago, Cloud Strife talked to Sephiroth for the first time.

* * *

“Zack!”

“Spike, thank goodness, have you seen—”

“No, I was hoping you had! You don’t think—”

“They think everyone’s out.

“They don’t know though? They aren't sure?”

“They aren’t letting anyone in, Cloud! Don't get close!”

“They’re firefighters, not Turks!” Cloud yelled back. “It’s not like they know all the ways inside!”

* * *

Three days ago, Cloud lifted Sephiroth’s glasses, gazing into his eyes.

“How long have they been hurting?” He asked, carefully cupping Sephiroth’s cheeks as he checked on his torn irises.

Sephiroth blinked slowly, clearly struggling to keep his gorgeous eyes open. They were strange, no doubt. Their pupils were torn outwards both up and down, the iris forming a strange shape around them. Not quite feline or snakeish up close. Not really at all what they drew them like on the posters of Sephiroth’s face they plastered up around town.

“You know they always hurt a little.” Sephiroth deflected, only letting Cloud look a moment longer before closing his eyes against the light.

“You should see a doctor.” Cloud insisted.

“Hojo says there’s nothing wrong.”

“You should see a better doctor.”

“Freaks are just in pain sometimes.” Sephiroth said with a shrug. “My eyes will settle down again once this run of shows is over. You know being in the lights makes them worse.”

“Maybe we could pitch them on a Medusa storyline for you?” Cloud suggested, sliding Sephiroth’s sunglasses back onto his face. “I know you can do all your routines blindfolded. It’d be in keeping with their whole ‘you’re a snake’ thing.”

“Not a bad plan,” Sephiroth granted, his lips curling up at the corners in a fond smile. “I feel I’d need to work out a new routine though. All of the ones I have right now aren’t nearly violent enough for her.”

“I don’t know about violent,” Cloud said, “but I’ve watched the audience watch you, Seph. You don’t have to lock eyes with them to turn them into stone.”

“Flatterer.” Sephiroth said, his teeth flashing in a grin and his arms snaking out to wrap around Cloud, tight and firm. “Don’t worry about my eyes, alright? They’re still good enough to watch you perform.”

“I don’t care so much about that,” Cloud said. “I’m just worried about you, doing that eye-catch out there with all those lights on you. If you fell…”

“I won’t fall, Cloud.”

“They never have lines on you.”

“That’s because I never fall.”

Cloud had huffed, but capitulated, leaning over to kiss Sephiroth slowly and softly, feeling his sigh against his lips, and tangling his hands in that long fall of silver hair.

* * *

About three years ago, Cloud had never watched anyone more closely. Had never been so stunned. He’d been watching Sephiroth train for nearly a year now, watching him feel his way through new techniques and new tools. Watched him explore his world with all things but his eyes.

He’d never seen him on the aerial silks before.

Cloud knew, on a purely intellectual level, that the silks were all strength. All muscle, and grip, and a knowledge of knots. But he watched Sephiroth in them, and couldn’t quite comprehend that it was strength and not nature that kept him aloft. That it was power, practice, and dexterity rather than some otherworldly skill.

Sephiroth gleamed amid the dark silks, his silver hair striped with green at the ends, shining scales painted on his face. The transition between body paint and clothing was almost invisible, making him look like he was patterned by nature, a green and black serpent dancing in the air. Twisting, coiling, climbing. His every motion was languid grace, his wraps and locks so practiced that they became invisible in the motion of the performance.

Cloud had tried silks a grand total of twice so far, and both times had ended up struggling to get his position locked in time. He’d just snared himself the first time. The second he’d nearly fallen. It was taking him some time to work back up to it.

Watching Sephiroth now, he felt like his soul was calling him to be in the air beside him. To climb after him up those ropes. To catch him in his arms. He was supposed to be watching Sephiroth to study him. But right now, watching a special, personal, small-scale preview of his new performance before their show that night, Cloud felt that age-old joy, that indescribable longing and dreaming that came from the art of it. He gazed up at him fixedly, starving for every moment, never wanting it to end.

He watched Sephiroth coil in and out and around the fabrics, ever higher, drawing the end of the fabric up with him. He should have known what that meant, but he was caught up in it, staring, following Sephiroth’s every move without understanding the mechanics. Only feeling the soul of it. The breathtaking freedom.

When Sephiroth dropped, Cloud reacted on instinct.

He jolted forward before he remembered it was a performance, hands outstretched. He caught a handful of hair and nothing more. Sephiroth blinked his eyes open a moment, a look of surprise on his face as he felt Cloud’s well-intended interruption.

Whatever he could make out of the look on Cloud’s face seemed to be enough to mollify him, because he only laughed at him, dangling upside down on his silks, his leg still safely wrapped, and the silk coiled lovingly around his waist and shoulder.

“Did you think I was falling?” Sephiroth asked warm and amused, letting his eyes fall closed again rather than straining them in the light.

Cloud let out a shaking breath, slowly crouching as his heart slowed down. Sephiroth slid down with him, still dangling easily on the silks, as if he was perfectly at home upside down.

“Sorry.” Cloud laughed, his voice only shaking a little. The tail feathers on his costume–his very first costume, golden and feathered and perfect–Brushed against the floor as he crouched. Sephiroth hummed in thought, still smiling.

“It's sweet.” He said. “Do you like the routine then, aside from the heart attack?”

“You’re beautiful.” Cloud breathed, his hand still holding the fall of Sephiroth’s glorious hair.

“I already knew that part.” Sephiroth said with a low chuckle.

Cloud lifted his hand, sliding it up the back of Sephiroth’s neck, holding him gently before him, studying his expression, peaceful and pleased as he always was after he performed.

“It’s your best yet,” Cloud breathed, leaning forward to kiss Sephiroth softly.

Sephiroth hummed pleasantly once more, his right hand keeping hold on the silks while his left cupped the back of Cloud’s head, holding him gently in the kiss. Cloud would never be tired of it, he thought. Never be tired of seeing Sephiroth like this. Of his strength, and his beauty, and his talent. Of his soft lips, and the glint of makeup on his cheekbones. Of peeking down at him from as they kissed.

“Good.” Sephiroth whispered when they finally broke apart. “Don’t run to catch me when I perform on stage, alright?”

Cloud scoffed, and leaned back in for another kiss.

* * *

“Cloud it’s coming down. Don’t go in there!” Zack warned, grabbing Cloud from behind, holding him tight.

“If he is in there, I am getting him out.” Cloud insisted, pulling against Zack.

The fire was not beautiful. It was not shining or glorious or awe-inspiring. It was only burning, waves of miserable heat pouring off the tent as the flames slowly ate away at it from beneath billowing clouds of black smoke.

“If he’s in there you’ll BOTH need rescuing.” Zack insisted.

“I have to check.” Cloud insisted, and stomped on Zack’s foot, hard.

He regretted it at once as Zack yelled in pain and surprise. Zack had been nothing but kind, nothing but supportive over the years. He didn’t have time to worry about it. He could mend his friendship with Zack later. When he was certain Sephiroth was safe.

He darted towards the gap in the tent where the Turks guided kids who couldn’t afford tickets. ‘The circus is home to a lot of lost people.’ Reno had said once, smoking out back after chauffeuring three siblings into their illicit watching spot. ‘All of us found it somehow.’

Cloud had imagined a scrawny red-headed kid pressed against the gaps in the seats, catching glimpses of the grand displays inside.

Now he slipped in through the near invisible gap and out under the seats. The smoke wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. The fire had eaten away the top of the tent, billowing up and out. Cloud didn’t have time to think about the stifling heat. He gripped one of the outer ring of Quarter Poles holding up the tent and started climbing, working his way up to the tops of the seats so he could get a view into the center of the tent.

* * *

Two days ago, Cloud saw Sephiroth slip. Saw for the first time in so so many years the moment when the trapeze wasn’t where Sephiroth thought it was. Watched his eyes snap open and his second hand reach, catching one-handed and holding. Watched it wrench his shoulder. Watched the pain on his face and the way he clenched his eyes shut.

Cloud felt sick and turned away, escaping the tent.

“Woah, hey, Spike.” Zack said, following him out. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not alright.” Cloud hissed. “He’s already hurting. It makes him tense. He can’t focus while his eyes are like that.”

“He can and he does.” Zack offered, giving Cloud a sweet, relaxed smile. “Come on, buddy. He doesn’t want you missing the night-before just because he had a close call. He saved it.”

“If he hadn’t he’d have died on the ring floor.” Cloud accused sharply. “Why don’t they have a line on him, Zack? Why don’t they have a net?”

“Because Sephiroth doesn’t want them.” Zack said, shaking his head. “You know that. Cloud, you’ve been out there long enough to know better now. If I strung a net under you every time you risked your skin I’d be following you like those trampoline clowns. Who, by the way, hilarious, right?”

“Zack—”

“Cloud, man, look. You’ve been here years now. Folks get hurt, bad things happen. But no one’s here because they want a safe, stable career. They’re here because once you’ve been under these lights, once you’ve made the road your home, once you know the way the air tastes up there under the tent… There’s nowhere you’d rather be. Sephiroth’s alright. And he’s been better these past few years for having you with him. We all have been. You’re a proper Trouper now, Spike. You’ll get used to the near misses one day. But don’t give into the temptation to run as soon as it’s someone else’s neck on the line and not just yours.”

Cloud stared at the floor, his brows twisted and his arms crossed tightly.

“I’m really worried about him,” he confessed softly. “He’s playing it cool, but I think he’s really afraid, Zack. Something’s wrong.”

“We’ll talk to him,” Zack soothed softly, “but for now, he’s going to want you. Trust me, when you cut it close, you always want someone nearby after.”

* * *

“It’s called bilateral coloboma.” Sephiroth told him three years ago, his glasses off, letting Cloud inspect his eyes in his dimly lit trailer. “It’s congenital, and not something you can cure. I’m lucky it’s symmetrical. That’s an unusual quality, so it suits the circus. I’m quite fortunate in that.”

“So glasses…?”

“Do nothing for me. The sunglasses help cut down on the glare, and I can see some. Enough to get the general idea. And I’ve been in this circus my whole life, so I know my way around. They only change the layout every once in a long while. Usually just to mess with me.”

He smiled at that thought, fond and amused. Cloud felt himself relax at the flippant remark. It was rare for them to talk about things more than the performances, the routines Sephiroth was creating, the show the other members of the troop put on.

“I’m fortunate.” Sephiroth said again. “In another life, another world, it would be harder. Here, they paint me on posters because I look unique. Hojo says I have the circus in my blood.”

“They’re beautiful,” Cloud said softly, stroking Sephiroth’s cheekbone under his eye lightly, staring into them. They were a dark green, he noted. Darker-looking for the strange pupils.

“So are you.” Sephiroth murmured.

“Or the me-shaped blurs,” Cloud teased carefully.

“I may not be able to make out the finer details,” Sephiroth admitted, “but trust me Cloud.”

His fingertips traced over Cloud’s cheekbone, back into his spiked hair. He found the feather Cloud wore there, tucked into his spikes every day since his first performance in that golden feathered costume.

“I can tell.”

* * *

It was hard to see. Hard to breathe. The air was choked with heat. Suffocating. Cloud looked anyway, leaning heavy against the railing, panting with effort. There wasn’t enough air. The stands were empty. Aside from the slowly collapsing ceiling, the flaming bits of tent fluttering down like confetti, all was still. The only sound was the fire and the distant screaming from outside.

Cloud lifted his gaze and felt his heart stop.

Someone was sitting on the highwire.

* * *

One day ago, Sephiroth had come to Cloud’s trailer. He’d been off somehow, Cloud thought. Terribly off. Grim and unhappy and silent.

“Is your shoulder alright?” Cloud asked, thinking of the last time he’d seen Sephiroth so dour. He’d gotten a terrible flu just before a performance, and had to send in his ringer. Not that anyone was fooled by the replacement. There was no one like Sephiroth.

“It’s fine.” Sephiroth said. He didn’t sit on Cloud’s cramped bed like normal. He just leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, sunglasses on.

“Did something happen?” Cloud guessed after a moment more of silence between them.

“I went to a doctor.” Sephiroth said quietly. “In town. An optometrist. The pain…”

“Oh,” Cloud said. “Bad news?”

“He wouldn’t see me.” Sephiroth said.

Cloud blinked, staring straight ahead before turning to Sephiroth.

“What?” He asked, thrown for a loop.

“He said he’d never seen such a sick instance of self-mutilation.”

“What? It’s not—”

“I told him. He said it wasn’t congenital. That he wasn’t born yesterday. That he knew a body modification when he saw it, and there was nothing he could do for someone who would willingly slice their eyes open.”

There was a sick bitterness in his words. An anger without outlet. Cloud shrank back.

“But you didn’t,” he whispered. “You were born that way.”

“I didn’t.” Sephiroth agreed darkly. “That doesn’t mean no one did.”

One day ago, Sephiroth hadn’t said what he meant by that. The day before, when Cloud went to catch him Sephiroth shoved him away with such strength that Cloud had been forced to turn it into a roll in the dirt to spare himself from bruising up before the dress rehearsal night.

The day before—

* * *

Cloud wanted to run. He wouldn’t, though. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t do that either. Don’t run away the moment it’s someone else’s neck on the line and not just yours, Zack had said.

So Cloud didn’t run away.

He climbed the ascent pole to the highwire.

The metal of the ladder was hot. Not quite blistering, not at first, but the additive effect was agony. He didn’t care. The closer he got, the more certain he was. The smoke and the heat were blinding, but he could still see some. The shadow of long hair. The legs swinging just a little, like he always did when he perched on the slackline while they played with Zack and the others. He was holding something, Cloud noted.

He made it up to the perch, trying to breathe through the smoke. Coughing too hard at this height could mean a very final fall.

Cloud kicked his shoes off, not caring that they went sailing down to the ground. He couldn’t hear them impact over the roaring of the fire. All that mattered was the man he could see now, sitting in the middle of the tightrope as the world burned down around him.

Cloud slid his bare foot out onto the rope, getting the feel for it. He steadied himself against the roaring heat. Against the blazing tent. Against his fear.

You know how to do this, he told himself, and stepped out onto the wire.

* * *

A year ago, Cloud got to choreograph his own routine for the first time, finally trusted enough to carry a portion of the show himself. He’d been given his choice of the many items he’d trained on.

He’d chosen the aerial silks.

It wasn’t anything like flying, because flying wouldn't leave rope burns and bruises. It wasn’t anything like freedom, because freedom wouldn’t snare you if you held on too tight, drop you if you held on too loosely. It wasn’t a dream, like Sephiroth had made it seem that first time Cloud watched him perform.

Cloud thought it was better the way it was. It was part of the circus. Part of him. Part of Sephiroth. It was bruises and rope burn and reality. It was the power to take pain and sweat and tears and turn it into a daydream.

“You’ve got something special,” Zack told him softly after his first full run of his routine. “Everything you did up there looked like a spell in motion. I’m so proud of you, Spike. The crowd is going to fall in love with you.”

Cloud had beamed at him, but he wasn’t too worried about that.

It was a love spell, in a way. It was the one he remembered Sephiroth casting on him, years ago. That dream. That tumble without a landing. That fall.

* * *

“I used to have nightmares like this.” Sephiroth said as Cloud slowly sank to sit next to him on the highwire, one leg on either side in case one of them overbalanced. In case Sephiroth wanted to fall.

“The fire, the tightrope, or me?” Cloud asked, his voice shaking with fear--with exhaustion.

“The fire.” Sephiroth said. “Though usually in the dreams I wasn’t the one who set it.”

Cloud looked down to the whiskey in his left hand and the torch he held in his right.

“I knew those firebreathers were a bad influence on you.” He joked weakly.

“I’ve been here longer. If anything I was a bad influence on them.”

“What are you doing here, Sephiroth?” Cloud asked, his voice breaking, surrendering the pseudo-normalcy as the tent groaned around them. “The tent’s coming down. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“This circus was my life.” Sephiroth said dully. His glasses were gone, and his eyes were closed, his head tipped downwards. “It was all I knew and all I had. I grew up here, Cloud.”

“Sephiroth, everyone’s outside. Everyone’s safe but us. Everything will be okay.”

“Oh, no. The circus will fold, Cloud. There’s no doubt in that.”

“Sephiroth—”

“You have no idea how much this tent cost.”

“I really don’t care. Just come back with me before the smoke gets any worse. Please.”

“You need to leave.” Sephiroth sighed, finally turning his head towards Cloud. “You didn’t have to stay here, Cloud. This place has no hold on you. Go home. Go back. Live your life. Fall in love.”

“I’ve already fallen in love.” Cloud said, his voice trembling weakly, the heat of the fire overwhelming. He didn’t know how Sephiroth had withstood it this long. “And this is my home.”

“I wish I could have seen you perform,” Sephiroth laughed, his voice strained and cracking. “Zack would always describe you to me. Your face. I can only barely see that you’re there. I can only see…”

Cloud watched a tear streak down his face. Watched his miserable red-rimmed eyes open.

“He did this to me,” He whispered, his voice trembling. “He put the circus in my blood by making me exactly what he wanted. Part freak, part acrobat. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Who did?” Cloud asked, reaching out, carefully sliding his hand over Sephiroth’s back. He found his shirt plastered to his skin with sweat. The fire cracked above them alarmingly.

“My father.” Sephiroth whispered. “Hojo. He wanted me to be the best. I didn’t mind the work. The practice. It was all I knew. But Cloud, I told him I knew last night, and he just… He just admitted it. Like he was proud. Like he’d been waiting to show off his work. He wanted his son to be the living embodiment of this place. An inescapable figurehead. A figurehead with no escape. He did this to my eyes, Cloud. He said he was proud of how they’d come out.”

“I will kill him for you myself,” Cloud whispered intently. “I will do anything you want to him, to this place, to all of it, but Sephiroth-- Sephiroth, please. We need to go now, before it’s too hot to climb down. Before this whole thing crumbles under our feet.”

Sephiroth was silent, his head tilted down towards the floor of the tent.

“He made you live for this place,” Cloud whispered. “Please don’t die for it.”

Sephiroth was silent for a moment. Then he released the torch and the alcohol, letting them tumble to the ground below. He leaned into Cloud’s touch silently.

Cloud wrapped him in a hug, squeezing tightly to him. This really wasn’t the time, but he didn’t have a choice. So long as he was holding onto Sephiroth like this, Sephiroth wouldn’t fall. So long as he was holding on, Sephiroth would stay on the wire. Cloud tangled his hands in Sephiroth's hair, then took it a step further. Wrapped his wrists with Sephiroth's long hair like a tie-off on the aerial silks. Then he held on all the tighter, cradling Sephiroth’s head to his chest as the man trembled, jostling the wire beneath them both.

“Cloud?” Yelled Zack’s voice from far below them.

“Up here!” Cloud yelled back to Zack. “We’re coming down, Zack!”

He looked down to the silver head tucked tight against his collar bone.

“We are going down, right?” He whispered to Sephiroth, sliding his fingers over his scalp soothingly.

Sephiroth took a ragged breath and straightened slightly, not seeming to notice or mind the fact that Cloud had tied himself to his hair.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

* * *

“What are you thinking of when you perform?” Cloud asked five years ago, watching Sephiroth practice for the first time.

“What am I thinking?” Sephiroth repeated, tilting his head towards him.

“Yeah. You have this amazing look on your face…”

“Hm.” Sephiroth considered, slowly arching back into a backbend as he thought. “I suppose… It just makes me happy. Why? What do I look like?”

There was a genuine curiosity in his voice, so Cloud considered deeply.

“I think you look like Icarus,” He said at last. “Like you’re falling in love with the sun.”

“Hah,” Sephiroth said, his expression splitting into a grin as he tilted his head towards Cloud, slowly straightening out of his backbend through muscle alone. “I should have known you were a romantic.”

* * *

Cloud didn’t know why he remembered it right then. It seemed appropriate, he supposed. Thinking of Icarus, high in the air in the circus tent he loved. Thinking of Icarus when the quarter pole nearest them gave out. Thinking of Icarus as the heavy impact of the support beam knocked into him. As his hand snagged in Sephiroth’s hair and dragged him off balance and off the highwire.

Thinking of Icarus as they fell.

Cloud had fallen before. He had understood at the time. Understood what they meant when they said ‘time slows down.’ He felt it then, that crystal moment of understanding in the middle of the fall. That absolute clarity. The flaming tent bearing down on them. Sephiroth above him, pulled off balance by the very hands Cloud had hoped to keep him safe with. Zack below, already screaming.

Flaming fabric. Silver hair. Wax wings. Sephiroth’s face turning towards him, eyes open wide.

The hand that closed around his wrist. The grip he automatically reciprocated after years spent catching hands reaching out to him.

The lurch of the world, of his stomach, of his arm. Agony. He screamed, feeling something pop and wrench. He panicked, feeling his hand’s grip weaken at the pain. He twisted, catching hold of Sephiroth’s arm with his other hand, clinging to him, curling his body up and away from the ground.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth choked, and Cloud had the presence of mind to look up. To force his eyes to focus. Sephiroth’s face was agony. His legs were locked around the tightrope, one knee hooked over it, caught in the hook of his other leg, balancing them against death on the floor.

“Climb.” Sephiroth ordered, hauling up against Cloud and only managing a couple inches of lift in their impossible position.

“Don’t fall!” Zack was yelling below them, sprinting to the side of the tent. Rigging, Cloud recognized dimly. The rigging for the silks.

Cloud forced his eyes onto Sephiroth’s body and grit his teeth against pain. What agony he was in, it was nothing compared to the man holding him.

Cloud found handholds where he could on Sephiroth’s stretched torso. Felt the man cup a hand under his heel, making a step stool for himself. Cloud wasn’t about to let him go unaided himself. The moment he was on the wire again he gripped Sephiroth’s legs, providing weight for his counterbalance, letting the man twist up onto the rope with a gasp and a shudder.

“Fuck.” Cloud gasped, eyes wide and wired as he looked around them. The rope was destabilized by the fallen quarterbeam. There was a piece of tent laying fully on it now, burning.

“I’m sorry,” Sephiroth whispered, his expression haunted, his eyes wide in the firelight. Cloud could see the flames reflecting in his red-rimmed eyes. He reached forward and covered Sephiroth’s eyes with his hand, blocking them from the damaging heat.

Zack had gotten the silks unhooked and lowered them. They weren’t right next to the tightrope. It would have been dangerous for the performers to risk being snared.

But they were close. Maybe close enough.

“We have to jump,” Cloud said to Sephiroth, gripping his shoulder with his other hand. “The silks are close enough Sephiroth. We have to jump.”

“You first.” Sephiroth gasped.

“No.” Cloud said firmly. “You first. Because if I miss, I don’t trust you not to miss too. I’ll watch you do it. I’ve always learned by watching you.”

He forced himself to stand. His legs hadn’t shook on a tightrope like this in years. It was always just this line between you and dying, he told himself. That you nearly died just now doesn’t change anything.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered, even as Cloud hauled him up, forcing him to stand or unbalance them both.

“It’s okay.” Cloud said firmly. “Go. Go now.”

Sephiroth caught his face. Kissed him with burning lips.

“Don’t miss.” He begged, his hands shaking on Cloud's cheeks.

Cloud watched him jump. Watched his hands catch and slide on the silks, his weight dragging him down. His already weakened body almost failing under the strain. But he held. Held, and slid down just a little, his face turned towards Cloud, his aching eyes opened.

Do not let him watch you die, Cloud told himself firmly. He jumped.

* * *

A year ago, Sephiroth was in Cloud’s trailer after Cloud's first self-choreographed performance, drinking to his health and to his success.

“So,” Sephiroth had said. “At long last, I can ask you. What did you think about, Cloud? While you performed?”

Cloud thought about the routine. Thought about how he’d felt when he’d designed it. What he’d been trying to say. About feathers, and scales, birds and snakes. About a feeling that devoured him. About the reality of rug burn inside a daydream.

“You.” Cloud said honestly. “You.”

* * *

Sephiroth had his head bowed. His eyes closed. He sat on the back of the ambulance, burned and bruised and miserable, cradling a plastic bottle of water. Cloud sat slumped beside him, one of his legs hooked behind Sephiroth’s, curled close to him.

“Drink.” Cloud reminded him softly. “Drink.”

“They’ll lock me up.” Sephiroth murmured.

“You were just stuck in the tent.” Cloud said firmly, leaning against his side, a water-bottle held to his chest as well. It was already half empty He was so thirsty... “You’re half-blind and you were disoriented by the fire.”

“Cloud—”

“No. They don’t get to make money off you for twenty three years because they—”

“Cloud.”

“You were practicing.” Cloud hissed, pressing his face to Sephiroth’s shoulder. “And when the fire started you got disoriented and couldn't find your way out.”

“They’ll find the torch. The bottle.”

“I’ll figure that out later.” Cloud muttered, leaning heavy against Sephiroth’s side. “Sephiroth. You’re shaking. Drink.”

“What will I do?” Sephiroth whispered, his voice weak. “It’s in my blood. This is all I know.”

Cloud pressed a slow, soft kiss to Sephiroth’s neck. He had no answer to give him.

Not yet, at least.

* * *

They didn’t have a name yet. Or a tent. They had Cloud, Sephiroth and Zack. They didn’t have much to start, but they had each other, and a slackline. Their bodies and their wardrobes. They had about four other acrobats, Kunsel included, and two of the clowns, and the old circus’s booking agent. They had two cars and a trunk full of props.

They had an open road and a series of shows in small venues.

Cloud leaned against Sephiroth in the back seat while Zack sang out of tune in the front. Sephiroth's hand found his, and twined their fingers tightly together. Cloud closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath and pushing away the memory of fire.

They had everything they needed now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Grim Reaper AU


	14. Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The planet's reaper, Cloud, is as gentle as he can be. But he's not prepared for Sephiroth. It's not entirely his fault. The planet itself isn't prepared for a creature that can just say 'no' to death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is pretty violent and gory... Just warning you!

__

_'The best shepherd is the one the flock never notices’  
—Unknown_

The planet loved her wayward children. Loved their mess and their noise. Their passion for the life she had given them. And yet, her very favorite of their qualities were also the most difficult. Passion for life was proving to be particularly troublesome. For her beautiful humans were so addicted to living that they had begun clinging to life well past the point they should have died. Ghosts began to crowd doorsteps. Great great great grandmothers and grandfathers shriveled and wrinkled down into insects rather than go of their existence, making a misery of themselves and the humans around them as they clung on.

It wounded her, their refusal to adhere to their bodies, their limitations. Each clinging soul was a fraying crack in her strength. A drain on the continuation of a cycle that had been churning long before humans arrived. Soon she could no longer offer them all the love they required. The ghosts and the past-dead, they were a constant drain on her power, only growing worse as time went on.

So in desperation, the planet made a reaper. A thing of doom and endings. It struck down upon her humanity and gathered her lost souls. It was quick and ruthless, and she thrilled at the return of her power. But she saw that her reaper was sorry and sad. And she saw that her humans feared it.

So she gave her reaper a gift, when she was well enough to create again. She let him rebuild himself, and in doing so she gave her humans a gift as well.

He would become a death they could love. A shepherd to help them along, calm and gentle. His scythe he made into a wooden staff, sturdy but not frightening. His dark cowl he traded for a soft blue robe like the sky. When he returned to roam among the humans, he did so invisibly, watching the creatures he had been made to protect from themselves.

He was not an ending, but a moving on. He was hands extended in offer and a gentle smile. And each spirit he lifted from their body, he taught how to lift others into the world of spirits circling the planet. Until there was very little use for him at all. Humans were social and eager pack creatures, and would gladly reach down to bring those they loved into the afterlife. Soon the reaper found little to do but to wander, watching his charges. Only occasionally, when someone got left behind, he would feel the tug of a soul too-long in its body and he would go to them and give his hand.

Cloud watched the humans he’d been created to gently herd, and he wandered the world alone among them.

He was happy.

* * *

The tug had gotten worse over the past few days. A soul stuck past its time. Why no one had come to lift it out Cloud didn’t know. It felt like any other soul. They all did. He had seen the cruelest men be eagerly lifted into the arms of their dead loves. Had watched monstrous wrongdoers be lifted and cradled like babies by the spirits of their mothers and fathers. Had seen good and bad and unmemorable people treasured by the spirits who had come to lift them.

There was, it seemed to him, no rhyme or reason to which souls became trapped. Some people just got… forgotten. But he did not forget them. He loved them all the same.

So for the past three days he had been walking steadily towards the distressed pull of this trapped soul.

He walked through a city surrounded by tall glass walls. Walked through the ruined slums he’d been to before. Many people, it seemed, were forgotten there. Even while they were still living.

He had never been above the plate before.

He wandered into the shining building in the center of it all, passing sleek wealth and beautiful people. He couldn’t help but feel disappointment in his darling humans. They seemed to do this so often. To build a tower and never look down, in every literal and metaphorical sense.

He moved past them all. Past halls still under construction, and elevators only just being installed. Walked until he was floating down the elevator shaft into a basement, and then that basement’s basement.

He found the soul isolated in a small room, sterile white. Cloud felt his heart sink at the sight of him there. Felt disgust twine through him at the sight of the planet’s blood being forced into his arm.

My mother, he said silently to the planet. What do they do to you now?

He walked towards the child. For he was a child. In all his days he had never seen a _child_ forgotten even by the dead. But this boy, with his strange eyes, and his silver hair, and his shuddering, stalling breaths, was alone.

“Hello.” Cloud said, and as always when he spoke the human turned to him. Saw what had been there the whole time that they had not seen before. He had seen people’s faces fall, seen them light up with hope, seen them twist, overcome with fear.

The boy only looked at him, struggling for each breath, waiting.

“Is there no one with you?” Cloud asked, walking over slowly. He saw now what had called him. The boy had been eviscerated. Why is he holding on? Cloud wondered to himself. Even with no spirits coming to lift him, the boy should have died days ago, when Cloud first felt the tug. He regretted having walked so slowly, leaving him trapped in his body as he held on desperately.

“He’s coming back.” The boy gasped in answer, his hands tight on the covers.

“Who?” Cloud asked.

“Professor Gast.” The boy coughed. Wheezed. Shuddered. He couldn’t have been more than ten. Cloud leaned on his staff, overwhelmed with sorrow for him.

“You are hurting,” Cloud said softly. “If you come with me you can rest. I promise you will see your friend again one day. You can wait for him without hurting if you let go. I will help you die.”

“I can’t.” Whispered the boy. “I can’t.”

“You can.” Cloud said, extending his hand to him.

“Hojo would be mad.” The boy whispered, dropping his head back on the pillow. “Hojo would be so mad.”

Cloud watched him pass out. Stood by his bedside, waiting. But the boy’s soul stayed silent. Stayed rooted in place. And even as Cloud stood there, watching, he saw the boy’s body piecing itself back together, as if reversing the injury that should have killed him.

“Oh my humans...” Cloud whispered, reaching out to touch the boy’s stomach softly, feeling the heat of his skin. The heaving gasps of his breath. “What have you done?”

The boy healed. It took days of agony. Each time he woke up, Cloud offered to take him. Offered him peace and comfort. He could feel the sickness on the planet, the drain, as the child healed.

And yet some part of him was glad. He had hated to see a child like that. So alone in the world that not even the dead knew his name.

The day the boy’s heart beat stronger and the last of his wounds had mended, Cloud knew he would not die. He could have taken him, he knew. Could have sliced his throat with his scythe. Could have given him no choice.

But the boy had suffered so long, visited only by silent doctors and nurses. He did not speak to them, and they did not speak to him.

So Cloud turned away to go, silently apologizing to his planet. The boy had stolen a while longer at the price of her blood, and Cloud could not find it in himself to regret not taking him. He had taken lives before, and he had hated it. The boy deserved better than that.

“Wait.” The boy whispered, eyes on Cloud.

“Have you changed your mind?” Cloud asked in surprise, turning towards him.

“No,” the boy said, “but I wanted to thank you. For staying. It was nice. You were nice.”

Cloud’s lips parted in surprise. He stared at the little boy, then pulled back his hood, letting his blond hair fall around his face. He walked over to the boy, his staff clicking against the floor.

“What’s your name?” Cloud asked softly.

“Sephiroth. What’s yours?”

“I call myself Cloud. I like them." He leaned a little on his staff, gripping it with both hands as he looked at the child. "Sephiroth, one day you will meet people who offer you their hands. I want you to know that you should take them. The way things are now, with you here and lonesome... They will not last forever. Whether it is your Gast coming home or someone new, take those hands, Sephiroth.”

Sephiroth swallowed hard, staring. His eyes were so strange, Cloud thought fondly.

“Will I see you again?” he asked.

Cloud smiled sadly.

“I hope not.” He murmured, and turned to go.

He could live longer, Cloud told himself. Form enough connections that the next time he fell Cloud would not even be needed. Someone he loved would come to collect him.

Two years passed by, slow and inexorable and beautiful. Cloud had seen all of Gaia in his years. Had walked over land, under water, around and around and around. And still there were new things to see. Still there were new ideas. New problems.

He had almost forgotten the silver-haired boy when the tug of a stubborn soul pulled him back towards the city. He knew before he walked inside who he was there to see, and it saddened him. Had no one come yet again? Was he still alone in those silent rooms?

He moved faster this time, gliding across the ground. People noticed the gentle wind of him passing by them, and the scent of funeral flowers.

The boy was not, as he’d thought, alone. There was a spirit beside him. One who turned sorrowful old eyes to Cloud when he approached.

Sephiroth lay on the floor in a pool of his blood. His breath gurgled in his lungs, and a bloody foam was building at the corner of his mouth.

“He won’t come.” The sorrowful spirit whispered to Cloud, recognizing him as all souls did and turning to him for help.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked softly, moving forward towards the dying boy. “You can let go. It’s alright. Someone’s here to take you from here.”

But the boy’s expression was hard. Fixed. Angry, to Cloud’s surprise.

“He left.” Sephiroth wheezed, his lips pulling back in rage and disgust. There was blood on his teeth. Blood in his throat. Blood everywhere.

“He left.” Sephiroth repeated, louder, angrier.

He would not look at the other spirit, and Cloud could only watch in awe bordering on horror as the young man pressed a hand over his bleeding chest as if he could hold the blood in and threw his head back against the floor, clenching his jaw and holding on. Could only watch as he ignored them both. As finally the scientists came, though where they had been before Cloud did not know. Could only watch as the spirit of the man who had come to lift him vanished. Could only watch as the body that should have died was healed by callous, uncaring hands.

That time there was no question for him. No question at all as Sephiroth lay there, twitching and shuddering as his body put itself back together.

He should have taken him by force. He would not make that mistake again.

But years passed in silence, and Sephiroth faded from his memory again. In his place rose a war. A terrible, ugly, awful thing. Lives snuffed out abruptly, in such numbers that things got lost in the chaos. People got lost in it. Cloud walked the battlefields, lifting those trapped and confused. Trying to give them some quiet at the end. Some peace.

In the center of it all, he found Sephiroth. Silver-haired, green-eyed, and different. Different from the others. From everyone around him. From the people dying on the ground. It was a bone-deep strangeness. Cloud could see the world twisting around him uncomfortably. The planet itself recoiled from his presence.

Cloud found him first in a dead city, blood still fresh on his blade. So many souls taken at once that even the spirits circle the world had run. Had left people trapped and stranded. Sephiroth was chuckling to himself.

“Hello Cloud.” Sephiroth murmured, turning towards him without lifting his eyes from the city before him. “I was hoping you would come.”

“Sephiroth.” He should not have been able to see Cloud. But he spoke to him easily. Like it was obvious. “This is…”

“Do you like it?” Sephiroth asked. “I always try to leave it just right for you. I always try to linger, in case you come. And you finally did this time. I wonder if that’s proof that I’m not out of my mind, or that I am.”

“You need to stop this.” Cloud said softly. “You should have let go years ago, Sephiroth. Something has gone wrong in you. I should have taken you the first time we met.”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t,” Sephiroth sighed, turning to face Cloud fully, a warm smile on his face. “You are the only one who’s ever stayed beside me, you know. I would wake up and you were there. If I keep killing, will I keep seeing you?”

Cloud felt something strange at the words. Something that stirred deep inside him uncertainly. Something that wore a black cape and carried a scythe rather than wearing a blue robe and leaning on a staff.

“Leave this war.” Cloud said softly. “End it if you can. You plunge the planet into chaos for nothing.”

“Not for nothing.” Sephiroth whispered, walking slowly towards him. “Will you offer me your hand this time, my reaper? Do you still want to give me peace?”

“Yes.” Said Cloud without hesitation.

Sephiroth smiled at him. Soft and warm.

“I don’t want it.” He said coldly. “Will you fight me, or will you leave?”

Fight him, part of Cloud was screaming. End him.

But it had been so long. So terribly long. And Cloud had hated fighting so much.

So he fled.

He almost turned back, once. Almost forced himself to stop, to turn, to fight. But something in the ground held him back. Some whisper carried in every flower.

'Be careful, be careful, be careful' his mother chanted, and Cloud learned the taste of a quiet, uncertain fear.

When next Cloud felt that particular tug, that particular soul, he blazed to it. He could not waste a chance. Somewhere, somehow, Sephiroth had fallen. And Cloud had to be there to meet him. To take him while he was down. To save the poor souls he had not yet stolen.

But when he saw him, he wavered. He always seemed to waver at the reality of him.

There had been an explosion. Something like that, at least. Sephiroth was on the ground, his face a ruined mess, blood and dirt spattered across his bare chest. He was lying still, only barely breathing. Cloud tapped his staff lightly on the ground, and felt it shift. Felt the blade of his scythe spring free. Felt black bleed out and back over his blue cloak.

But standing over him, it was hard to face that fact. What needed doing. What he’d been freed from so many years ago. He could see the sickness in Sephiroth. Part of it was his fault. He should have died. But part was that that his body had been dragged back, that his soul had detached and been bound back again over and over by the power of the planet's blood.

And part of it... Part of it was just something in him. Something that made the planet want to squirm away from him.

Cloud took a moment to look down at him. He looked human enough, lying there wounded on the ground. Human and still young and— for the third time since Cloud had first seen him— dying alone. Cloud looked up to see the same man's spirit watching, shifting uneasily. Still not accepted then, Cloud thought. He hoped Sephiroth would have time to work it out with the sad spirit once he was finally at peace.

Sephiroth drew in a ragged breath, and Cloud turned merciful eyes down to him, his scythe lifted.

He wasn’t prepared for the sword that lashed up at him, singing. Wasn’t prepared for the unspeakable pain.

He cried out, rough and ragged, lifting a hand to his face as he staggered back. One of his eyes, he realized. One of his eyes. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t mortal. He wasn’t supposed to be… Sephiroth shouldn’t have been able to…

“I’m sorry, my reaper,” Sephiroth rasped, dragging himself upright, even as his skin sloughed off, even as the burns across his body crisped and healed, faster than ever before. He was getting stronger. “I couldn’t let you take me.”

He was unsteady on his feet, staggering, his sword dragging against the ground. His lips were parted, blood dripping from between them. Cloud gaped at him, his hand shaking over his eye. He lowered it slowly, feeling his form pull itself back together, bloodless. But not unharmed, it seemed.

In his right eye, where Sephiroth had struck him, he saw nothing. Nothing at all.

“What are you?” He gasped, lifting his face to stare at Sephiroth. “How could you? I only want—”

“I am sorry.” Sephiroth whispered, sounding genuinely remorseful. “Cloud, my reaper, next time you must fight me.”

The helicopters were arriving already. When Sephiroth lifted his hand to the ladder unfurling from one, Cloud couldn’t figure out a way to take him. To cut him down. Not without the world looking upon a cruel god killing a man on his feet.

A man whose blood lay on top of the ground long after he’d been flown away. As if the ground didn’t want to absorb it.

Cloud stayed for a long time, staring down at his hands.   
  
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t repair his eye.

No matter how he tried, he couldn’t turn his robe back to blue.

In the days that followed he felt the pull of lost souls as he always had, and he went to them as he always had. But he no longer wandered aimlessly between their calls. No longer found his joy in the silence.

Cloud stayed close to Sephiroth, and watched his every move.

“I do not think you will take me in my sleep,” Sephiroth said quietly, the first night that Cloud stood in his room, staring as the body that should have been broken, scarred, brutalized, stretched in the candlelight. There wasn’t a mark on him. Not a single scar.

Cloud didn’t answer, standing there, watching.

“You’re too good for that.” Sephiroth continued, a smile crossing his face. “You always were kind. Your eye didn’t heal?”

“No.” Cloud said.

“I did apologize,” Sephiroth said, “but to be fair, you were about to reap me. So much for the gentle hand and a lift upward, him?”

“You wouldn’t accept,” Cloud said mildly, watching the way spirits coiled around Sephiroth. “I know you at least that well now.”

“I like to think we know each other fairly well indeed.” Sephiroth said. “Give yourself time, Cloud. Recover from your injury before you try to take me again. And be cautious, now that you know Masamune’s bite.”

“Such concern?” Cloud asked coldly, narrowing his eyes at Sephiroth in quiet suspicion.

“You are my reaper,” Sephiroth said simply, “and you are welcome to stay a while, if you will. You could learn all manner of things, and lift up the souls I take.”

“You think yourself above them.” Cloud said sadly. “Those people you kill.”

“I am above them.” Sephiroth said simply, lying back on the bed. “I am above every one of them.”

Cloud did not stay. But Sephiroth was right.

No matter how long he willed himself to, he could not reap the man in his sleep.

Perhaps, he told himself, his newly blind eye stinging, it was fear that stayed his hand. Perhaps.

* * *

He met him on the battlefield once more, before the end of the war. Faced him there head to head. This time he had come ready. This time, Sephiroth was wounded but not yet on the ground, too pathetic for Cloud to firm his resolve. This time…

Sephiroth smiled at the sight of him, with a look like true pleasure.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.” Sephiroth said warmly. “You look beautiful in black, did you know that? It suits you so well.”

“You are a strange man,” Cloud said, unable to keep a small, uncertain smile from his face. “But we have danced long enough. You want to fight, so let us fight. The winner keeps your soul.”

“What if I don’t want my soul as my prize?” Sephiroth asked, smirking. “After all, I already have it.”

Cloud laughed, brief and hard and a little bit angry. His blinded eye stung, but he had left the anger long behind him. It was the first change in him since the goddess’s gift of his new, gentle body. He would withstand this change as well.

There was no room for gentility in their battle. There was Sephiroth’s blade against his scythe. There was a muddy battlefield that should have mired Sephiroth’s feet and not Cloud’s, and instead mired neither of them. There was Sephiroth’s nearly idle chatter.

“You have missed an awful lot.” Sephiroth commented. “They say we will win the war in a few days time. I had hoped to see you more, but I understand you avoiding me. I don’t mind terribly much when it’s you, you know, Cloud. You always come back.”

“I am the reaper.” Cloud panted, lifting his scythe to deflect Sephiroth’s blade. “I am death. I come for every person, and I leave no one behind.”

“Not even me.” Sephiroth said, fondly.

“Especially not you.” Cloud insisted, slamming their blades together.

“Sephiroth?” Called a voice that Cloud had heard once or twice in Sephiroth’s company. One of his comrades. One of the few he might call friend.

“Here, Angeal.” Sephiroth called to him, straightening out of his fighting stance and lowering his sword. Cloud followed suit, standing back and away.

“I thought I heard a fight.” Angeal said, jogging up the hill towards them, looking around. Sephiroth brushed the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand, casual as could be, and when he had finished the motion the injury was gone.

“Only me, my friend.” Sephiroth said, eyes on Cloud. “Simply training a while. Shall we?”

“Don’t wander off so much, would you?” Angeal requested, placing his hand on Sephiroth’s back. “You know we worry since you nearly got yourself blown up.”

“Yes Angeal.” Sephiroth said, almost playfully, almost happy.

There, thought Cloud to himself. There. He finally has a connection. I was right all those years ago after all. He lived long enough for someone to care for him. They will lift each other in time.

When he caught up to Sephiroth again, short years later, Angeal’s spirit was behind him. The dead soldier was miserable, watching alongside the sorrowful man who had followed Sephiroth since he was a child. Cloud looked at their spirits sadly in the silent room beneath the mansion of horrors. He had pulled more than one soul from this place in his time.

“He will not take my hand.” Angeal said softly to Cloud, and faded away.

“He will not let anyone take him now, I fear.” The other man said. “Not even you. Not anymore.”

Sephiroth paced the library. There was no blood, but Cloud knew. He knew.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud said softly, announcing his presence more than anything.

“Hello my reaper.” Sephiroth greeted, his eyes still on the book. “Did you know that I am not human?”

“I suspected. Many tried to fight me in the old days, and they never left me wounded.”

“I would that you had told me.”

“For what purpose? Would being inhuman have made you take my hand? You always seemed to have a thousand reasons not to.”

“Yes.” Sephiroth said, still reading.

“You have been down here seven days.” Cloud pointed out.

“That long already?”

“Sephiroth.”

“There is so much more to know. My mother…”

“How long ago did your heart stop?”

Sephiroth paused. He lifted his head, frowning in confusion, then put a hand to his own chest. Cloud knew he would be feeling nothing. He knew the look of him. The corpse and its soul.

“Seven days with no food, no rest, no water.” Cloud said, as kindly as he could. “It is too much for any body to withstand. Even yours.”

“That’s alright.” Sephiroth said, turning back to his book. “I don’t need any of that. Not anymore.”

“You are breaking the world, Sephiroth.” Cloud informed him softly. “You are twisting the rules for yourself. I cannot let you do that. I cannot. Why did you not take your friend’s hand when he came for you?”

“He left.” Sephiroth said simply, still staring at the page. “They all leave.”

“He came back.” Cloud pointed out. “Just like you praise me for doing.”

“You are different.” Sephiroth insisted.

“How so?”

Sephiroth only smiled.

“It’s time to end this.” Cloud whispered. “It's over, Sephiroth. You need to move on.”

“But my reaper,” Sephiroth said softly, “who would keep you company without me?”

And Cloud tried not to think about the barbed truth in those words.

He struck first this time. Struck first, because he had been prepared. Prepared for it to take this turn. Prepared for the dead man in the dust and decay to stand against him.

He hadn’t been prepared for the sorrow he felt at seeing him so. Standing in his dead body, a parody of his living self.

His scythe opened a slice across Sephiroth’s face. It had been aimed to take off his head, but the man was fast. Faster than a corpse-driver should have been. Cloud sharpened his vision in his good eye, looking to his soul, and saw the thing inside him for the first time properly. The bonds like the legs of a centipede, tying him to his body. Connecting him to the thing within him. That cruel, inhuman thing.

The cut Cloud opened on Sephiroth's face did not bleed. His heart was not pumping.

“Oh Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered, sounding romanced if anything, “how I have waited for this.”

Sephiroth flew at him, and it was all Cloud could do to get the sword up between them. The library erupted in torn paper and tumbling bookshelves as Sephiroth impacted. The air vibrated with his force, but Cloud wouldn’t be so easily shaken this time. He narrowed his eyes, and felt his cloak changing, red bleeding in from the outside as he honed his power. This would be the end.

He shifted his grip and swung upwards with his scythe, aiming to slice Sephiroth completely in half. The man dropped his sword to guard, but Cloud was not some human to be so neatly blocked. His stroke was unstoppable, and though Sephiroth kept himself from being cleaved in two Cloud’s swing still sent him flying. The beautiful, horrifying man was sent crashing through the ceiling of the room.

Cloud felt his cloak billow around him as he followed, leaping up through the rubble, his scythe glinting in the dust. Sephiroth’s blade screamed back at him, slashing it aside. The two of them were suspended in the air a moment before Cloud put on a burst of power, driving Sephiroth forward and out of the mansion, out under the stars.

The mansion collapsed raggedly behind him, and Cloud distantly heard the townspeople waking, yelling. He didn’t stop to consider it. Sephiroth was before him, smiling, looking happier than he had in a long time when Cloud checked in on him. Happier than Cloud had seen him since the last time they fought.

Cloud was unstoppable. He was a force of nature. His strikes hit over and over, the tip of his scythe catching Sephiroth’s face, his arm, his body. Sephiroth only smiled at him, easy, and drove him back again with Masamune as if he were only another Soldier and not Death himself.

Cloud finally got him right outside the reactor. The moon shone above them, and Sephiroth was laughing, and he was beautiful, Cloud thought despite himself. He was beautiful.

Cloud told him so, and Sephiroth froze. Just long enough. And then Cloud was behind him, his scythe at his throat. The move was so fast that Masamune impaled his cloak behind him. Cloud smiled, soft and warm, and Sephiroth tilted his head towards him, laughing softly once again. Gentle and warm.

“So are you.” Sephiroth whispered. “You are so beautiful... Don’t reap me, Cloud. Let me stay with you.”

“The world would burn with you living in it.” Cloud whispered. “Men are meant to die.”

“I am not a man.” Sephiroth said, his voice fond, his eyes impossible, his smile so soft.

“There are people waiting for you,” Cloud reassured. “Friends. Your Angeal. Your Gast.”

“You are the only one I want.” Sephiroth whispered. “If you reap me, I will never see you again. Who will challenge you? Who will talk to you?”

“It is not a choice I am making,” Cloud whispered. “It is what I am. I am death, and I keep the order of things. You are dead, Sephiroth. You should have been dead a long time ago.”

“Never.” Sephiroth whispered. “Never.”

Cloud felt the spell unleash. Felt the ground crack open below them. He sucked in a breath as he heard the planet screaming, screaming below him at the assault. He wavered, and Sephiroth stabbed backwards, impaling Cloud behind him with Masamune.

Cloud, in return, dug the scythe into his neck.

And they both fell.

“So,” Said the goddess softly, an eternity later on. “You are the one who would kill my death.”

“Not kill.” Sephiroth corrected, standing before her, stripped of his self-imposed immortality. Only mortal and strange and almost, almost human.

Cloud shivered, floating before his goddess. Her hand was on his stomach, over where Sephiroth had struck him.

“Only keep.” He murmured, his eyes on Cloud.

“You have suffered enough,” Cloud whispered, finding his voice weak and miserable. “You only know me through your pain. You can rest, Sephiroth. You can rest now…”

“I don’t want to.” Sephiroth said, eyes on the goddess. “I am not made to rest. I will tear your world apart brick by brick sooner than become another passive soul, told that those who abandoned me meant only the best.

“What would you have?” The goddess asked, tilting her head.

And Sephiroth smiled.

“A job.”

* * *

The goddess had a reaper whom she loved. His cloak was sky blue, and his one blank eye no longer pained him. His staff he carried gently, and it disguised the slight limp with which he walked. He was a gentle soul, and readily offered his hand, not because he thought he could not be hurt, but because he chose compassion over fear.

The goddess also had a reaper whom she did not love. Did not favor. He was dark and vicious. He followed the letter of his law, he did his duty admirably, but with no heart. He went to the cold souls, the vicious souls. He went to places of misery, to spare his fellow reaper.

She did not trust him. Did not love him. Had not wanted him. But she tolerated him with moderate good humor.

For in all his many, many years, she had not realized that Cloud was lonely. And now that she saw him happy, she could not imagine it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Detectives AU


	15. Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's been working as a private detective in the slums for long enough to know how things go. The cops work for Shinra, and the people suffer. But still, he didn't expect it to have gone this far. Running into a cop working for DON CORNEO? Wow. New lows.
> 
> But what's worse... It sort of seems like this admittedly handsome undercover idiot doesn't know what's going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Contains police corruption and gun violence, as well as light descriptions of a torture victim. Enjoy?

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

When he was seven years old, Cloud put on his father’s officer hat, looking at himself in his mother’s vanity mirror. He liked the look of it. His unruly blonde hair under the hat that his father had worn. He was a hero, his mom had said. He was a hero.

“Me too.” Cloud whispered, staring at his reflection, trying to imagine himself as the vision of his father in his mind. The man in the pictures, grinning and strong.

But when his mother walked into the room and saw him wearing it, she had cried so hard and so long that Cloud had told her he was only playing, had apologized over and over, had hugged her tight while she cradled him.

“Not you too,” she’d whispered softly into his hair. “Not you too, my Cloud. Please. Please…”

So when they were asked what they wanted to be in school, Cloud wrote ‘scientist’ on his card, even though his heart had a different answer.

When he was tasked with drawing who he wanted to be when he grow up, he knew it would be handed to his mother, so he drew himself as a veterinarian.

He could not explain to her why he fought at school. The truth would make her sad, he knew. That the other kids were cruel, were bullies, were hurting others. And Cloud couldn’t let them.

He just told her that he didn’t like them. It was at least partially true.

“You can’t punch your way out of everything, Cloud,” She’d whispered to him. “There are people there to protect you if those kids are bothering you, alright?”

Cloud had nodded his agreement, but it had only solidified something inside of him.

He wanted to be one of those people who protected.

So when he was old enough, he went to enroll in the academy, just like his father must have done. He’d snuck out to do it. His mother would stop him before he started if she could, he thought. But when he came back with the requirements to get started, and the prospect of a fourteen month training program, he couldn’t hide it from her any longer.

She had cried. He had expected that. But she had also taken his cheeks in her hands, and told him tearfully that she was proud of him. And that had been enough to make him feel like he’d done the right thing.

Two months of training to join the Midgar Police Department changed his mind. Two months of hearing the people around him laugh about toting guns through the slums. Two months of listening to his teachers brush over the important things. Two months of being told that protocol was the most important. Protocol, and a good alibi or defense in case things went bad. Protocol, and the right grip on your gun while you’re shooting down a person in the street for stealing to survive.

Cloud quit and went to college. He couldn’t tell whether his mother was more relieved or disappointed. But he hadn’t given up on his dream. He’d only changed it.

The MPD's rules weren’t for protecting people at all. His would be.

He opened up Strife Detective Agency not long after. Priced his services on a sliding scale. Handed out flyers in the slums, promising a way to call for backup and know that backup wouldn't show up guns blazing. He talked to people. He listened.

When his mother stood in the doorway of his shabby office, looking around at the three newspaper clippings pinned to his cork board, and his diplomas in Criminal Law and Psychology hanging on the wall. He knew he’d be paying off those degrees for the rest of his life, but he didn’t mind. He’d already gotten his first case. Already gotten a woman and her child to safety away from an abuser. Already helped his first lives. He’d never regret all the things it had taken to get him to the place where he’d delivered that woman to the safehouse.

“I am so proud of you,” his mom had said, more softly, more gently than she had when he’d tried training in police work. “You’ll stay safe, won’t you?”

“I always do.” Cloud said mildly, smiling down at the first pieces of mail he’d received at his new business address.

“No you don’t.” His mother scoffed. “Who do you think I am exactly?”

“Well,” Cloud said after a long moment. “I’ll try?”

“Good.” She laughed, only a little teary. “That’s more realistic.”

Cloud didn’t tell her about his first major investigation, taken pro-bono and requested by no one but the look of relief on people’s faces when he told them he wasn’t affiliated with Midgar’s police.

He was going to find out what was happening behind those walls.

* * *

Don Corneo was what folks in the Private Investigator business would call ‘Oh, wow, no, I’m just one guy. You sure you don’t have any cats you need me to find?’

Which is what Cloud OUGHT to have said, he told himself as he walked unarmed towards the mansion of the slum’s most prolific crime boss. He really really ought to have said no.

It was only, it wasn’t really the Don his client was after. He just wanted to know if his son was alright after getting drafted in with the Don’s goons. Wanted some way to know he was safe. Wanted him to be able to escape if he needed to escape.

“I’ve got some experience with things like this.” Cloud had told the sobbing father, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “I’ll see what I can do, alright?”

It had been a bald-faced lie. He'd never done anything like this. But then, Cloud had gotten pretty far on bald-faced lies. Strife Detective Agency wasn’t flourishing, but it was surviving. And with how little he charged his desperate clients, that was an impressive feat. Impressive enough, in fact, that when he walked up to the guards at the gate, he recognized one of them from a previous case.

“Afternoon.” He said mildly to them both. “How’s everything going, Two Snakes?”

“Oh hey, Strife.” Two Snakes said, his grin big and friendly for a guy who had probably snapped people in half over his leg. “You workin’ a case?”

“I am.” He said, rocking back on his heels easily, hands loose by his sides. “One of your new kids has someone trying to pin a gig on him. I don’t think it was him, but I’ve gotta talk to him. Don’t suppose the Don likes visitors too much though, huh?”

“Not pigs he doesn’t.” The other guard spat, eyes narrowing.

“Ayy, Strife ain’t no pig!” Two Snakes objected. “You think I’dda hired a crooked PI, Mikes? C’mon. Kid’s a slum-rat like the rest of us at heart. Just a slum-rat with sharp eyes.”

“And empty pockets, or I wouldn’t be bothering the big fish.” Cloud added, smiling easy and relaxed. They guy called 'Mikes' had a hand on his gun, but Cloud was used to that. He’d been held at gunpoint before, and he usually got out without being shot even a little bit.

Almost 100% of the time, in fact.

About an 89% success rate.

So far nothing he’d had to call his mom about.

“Sorry Spikes, but you’re right about th’ boss not likin’ visitors. I can tell the kid you stopped by if yer wantin’ tho?”

“Sounds like I’d have to start paying you if you’re gunna run messages for me.” Cloud laughed, eyes narrowing pleasantly. “It’s fine, you know I’ve got my network, Two Snakes. Good ta see you again, though.”

“Yeah, you too.” The man said, his grin still easy and warm. “Vicky’s been doin’ real well.”

“Hold up, this is th’ one who got your wife off for that smash and grab?” Mikes asked, and Cloud saw the look of surprise. The impressed consideration. He did sort of live for that look.

“You know she did it, right?” Mikes asked him, his tone a blatant challenge.

Cloud scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Man, come on!” Two Snakes complained.

“I’m an investigator.” Cloud said dryly. “Of course I know she did.”

He waved and turned to walk away. It wouldn't be as easy as walking in, but that was fine. He’d expected that much. And better, now he’d allayed some suspicion by showing that he was going about things the ‘right’ way.

Plus, it was nice to see Two Snakes again. It wasn’t every day Cloud got a hug that warm from a client for finishing a job, and he’d been happy to do it. A little petty theft shouldn’t have ended with her in shackles or looking at five years in prison. She hadn’t even so much as knocked anyone out.

Maybe his priorities were skewing a little. But he didn’t think so. Vicky was a good woman trying to make a better life for herself.

Plus, Cloud couldn’t be too mad about her stealing from a Shinra recruitment location. Though he was certain that was why the response had been so immediate and violent.

There was something between Shinra and the DA. Shinra and the cops. He almost had enough to piece it together. Almost.

For the moment he circled wide, walking easy and slow. Twined familiarly through the slums, his hands in his pockets, keeping literal fingers on his cash. He knew better than to carry more than he could stand to loose, but it never hurt to have a little bribe in the pocket.

He stepped up to the sewer grate with a sigh. He hated doing this, but it wouldn’t be his first time. He knew for a fact that it connected to the Don’s house. He’d heard from Tifa, one of his best friends and contacts, that when she infiltrated to stop the Don skeezing on the local women she’d ended up dumped into the sewers from a trapdoor in his very bedroom.

Not before she gave him a painful reminder that women were not to be taken lightly and he was being watched though, she’d assured him.

Cloud pulled a pair of plastic bags out of his pocket, tying them around his shoes.

“You going in the sewers?” A little girl missing two of her teeth asked, watching him suspiciously.

“Yup.” Cloud said. “Gunna rat me out?”

“To who?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Sewer cops.” Cloud replied, hopping on one foot while he tied the second bag.

“Ew!” She laughed.

Cloud grinned and winked at her.

“Pay you three gil to shove the grate back over my head.” He told her.

She was a tough little cookie. She got the grate back into place neatly above him, and he tipped her an extra gil through the grate.

“Watch out for sewer cops, sucker!” She chirped.

“Enjoy your haul, you little tattletail.” Cloud replied pleasantly.

He flicked on his flashlight and turned away from the light of the grate, moving into the pleasantly wide sewers. He didn’t know how much the people who build the city thought the slummers would be shitting, but it must have been a lot, because the tunnels were insanely big. Cloud tried to breathe as little as possible and kept his steps even and measured. He kept an eye on his flashlight, keeping it partially covered with his hand when he went under a grate or platform that might have given away, and shining it up into dark places in the ceiling.

Looking for trapdoors.

He found quite a significant one after almost half an hour of walking, and smiled in amusement at the giant trapdoor over the sewers. What an interesting failsafe to have in one’s bedroom, he thought to himself, fighting the urge to knock on the underside just to see what the man would do.

Still, that meant he was under the mansion. Just time to see if he could find a way in. At some point, someone had to come down here to take care of the trap door, he was certain. At some point someone had had to install it. So Cloud walked, taking his time, till he found a locked grate. Yeah, he thought to himself. Just a padlocked grate. Normal.

He reached around to pick it blind, his flashlight held between his teeth and his eyes rolled upwards to the ceiling as he willed himself patient enough to work through the frustration. By the time he finally got the lock open the smell was really getting to him, he had to admit. Still, it was a job neatly done, and he stepped through then carefully re-locked the padlock behind him. He pulled the plastic bags off his feet when he reached the stairs, and climbed them easily, straightening his jacket and brushing a hand through his hair.

This was the easy part. Just walk out and pretend he was supposed to be there. That usually worked.

About 89% of the time.

He walked out easy and smooth, closing the door behind him. No one was in the hallway, but he knew that didn’t mean no one was watching. He closed it up behind him and turned left, walking as if he knew exactly where he was going.

He found the break room. Of course. Of course he found the break room. The one place with the highest concentration of people he needed to fool or avoid. Great. Time to put that 89% to the test.

There were four people in it. Including his target. Whoa, brain, 'target' made it sound bad, he scolded himself internally in the 0.5 seconds during which he appraised the scene. Including his 'employer’s son,' he corrected himself.

There were also two of Don Corneo's tough guys, and one man who could _not_ have been cheap hired muscle. For one thing, the look he turned on Cloud was the most piercing and threatening he thought he’d ever endured.

For another, he was utterly gorgeous. Like, wow. Wow.

“Hey,” Cloud greeted lazily, “Cloud Strife, private investigator.” Better to stick with the truth. He’d be made in no time if he tried for, like, 'trap door repairman.'

The toughs looked confused. The kid looked afraid.

The beautiful man already had a hand under his jacket where he must have kept his gun. He was staring so hard, like he could see under Cloud's skin.

“Got permission to talk to the kid.” Cloud said, pointing to Denzel. “Nothing too bad. Just some questions about a mutual acquaintance who took something of the Don’s.”

“Um.” said Denzel.

“Cloud Strife?” One of the toughs said. “Yeh, I know about you. You’re that big old softie who set up shop down in Sector Five. They say you’ll take any job for a sad story. That true?”

“Eh,” Said Cloud, shrugging. “The ladies love it. Too bad I’m in the market for a fella.”

The second tough laughed, and the mood in the room eased.

“You don’t have ta talk to me, but I heard you were on break and figured better now than bein’ a creep and trackin’ you down at home.” Cloud said to Denzel. “You mind?”

“Uh, nah.” Denzel said, standing and rubbing his hands over his pants legs as if he thought it wasn’t obvious his palms were sweating. “Nah. Can’t promise you nothin’ though. I’m no rat.”

“Good then, kid. We’ll get along fine.” Cloud laughed. “We’ll be right around the corner, fellas, if you wanna keep an eye on us.”

The two toughs were already back to their coffee. Spiked, Cloud noted from the smell. His lips twitched up a touch with a sly smile. Tisk tisk.

The beautiful man by the window only stared, eyes narrowed.

“Denzel.” He said, warning in his voice. “Be cautious.”

“Yessir.” Denzel muttered, ducking around Cloud as he held the door for him.

Cloud left it part way open. Less suspicious than closing it firmly. Less likely to lead to prying ears. He headed to the right, back the way he’d come. Better than any other nasty surprises.

“Now I want you ta know neither Corneo or I think you had anythin’ ta do with it, kid, so don’t stress.” Cloud said, voice easy and mild as he walked the kid down the hallway with a hand on his shoulder. Just like he’d held his father as he cried in fear over this kid.

“Who’s this about?” The kid asked, shaking like a leaf under Cloud’s hand.

Cloud glanced back to the half-open door, only once, and decided they were far enough.

“Your dad hired me.” He said, squeezing the kid’s shoulder. “He’s worried you got in over your head. You doin’ alright here? They hurtin’ ya? Make you do things you don’t want to do?”

“What?” Denzel asked, looking dazed and tired. Shit, Cloud thought. Kid looked every one of his sixteen years.

“Look.” Cloud said. “I know how it goes. Getting stuck in a position like this. If you want out, you gotta get out fast. I’m here to give you that option, kid.”

Denzel swallowed. Hard. Shit, thought Cloud. I was really hoping he’d laugh at me.

“I...” He whispered. “Look, mister, I can’t leave. They’ll hunt me down. And dad too, probably.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person I got away from a manhunt.” Cloud assured him. “I’ve got a friend. He’ll help. It won’t be easy, and it’ll involve moving out to sort of the middle of nowhere, but you and your dad’ll be safe in Rocket Town. Neither the Don nor the Shinra are welcome there. I know this is your home but—”

“Yes.” Denzel whispered, his hand clutching Cloud’s suit jacket. “Please. Please, mister, I can’t…”

“Easy, kid.” Cloud whispered, seeing the tight fear on Denzel’s face. “All you had to say was yes.”

Cloud pulled his jacket off, wrapping it around the kid’s shoulders.

“There’s an address in the breast pocket, and a flashlight in the right.” Cloud said. “We’ll leave through the sewers, but you’re wearing that in case we get separated. Got it? You get pulled away from me, you go here.”

He tapped the breast pocket.

“And you ask for Barret. Got it?”

“Yes.” Denzel whispered, looking awed.

Cloud was weak against that look.

“Good kid.” Cloud whispered.

“Mister,” Denzel said, “they made me hurt a guy. They would have done something bad to me if I didn’t, I think. But that guy, I think he’s still alive. Downstairs. I heard him screaming earlier. Can you—”

Shit, thought Cloud. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

“Alright.” He said aloud. “I’ll try. But you get moving first, got it? Come with me.”

He took him to the sewer door. Opened the lock once again. Better safe than sorry, but he hated taking the time.

“Now don’t run,” Cloud cautioned him softly, closing the door behind him. “Keep it slow and steady. Barret has your dad’s info. He’ll keep you safe. Got it?”

“Got it.” Denzel whispered. “Be… Be careful. They’re not… They’re not good people.”

Cloud smiled at him, reaching through the grate to ruffle his hair.

“Good thing you’re leaving then.” He praised with a smile. “You’re a good kid, worrying about that guy. Don’t doubt it.”

He left the kid there, turning to go back into the mansion a second time. Much more dangerous the second time. Much much more dangerous. One round of faking it was already too much.

He was barely out the door when a hard hand gripped him by the back of his neck and dragged him into a side room. It wasn’t a gun, so Cloud went with it. Grabbing usually meant talking. It was pointy things and shooty things he needed to worry about, not big hands on the nape of his neck.

But when he looked up into the glare of the beautiful guy from the break room he felt his blood ice a little.

“You got a lead for me, boss?” He asked, a lazy, casual defense to cover for the instant terror in his heart. “Or a job? Because I gotta warn you, I don’t usually get involved in—”

“Where’s the boy?” The man asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Oh geeze, must have misplaced him.” Cloud said, his voice flat and innocent. “Must have scampered off to make a call to his friend and warn her I'm on her tail.”

The man glared at him, then leaned down close, teeth bared as he spoke.

“I am detective Sephiroth of the Midgar P.D.” He growled in Cloud’s ear. “And you are impeding an investigation, ‘detective.’”

Cloud heard and did not appreciate his use of sarcasm quotes around his title.

“Where.” Sephiroth hissed. “Is. The. Boy.”

“Safer than he was with you.” Cloud responded coldly, lifting his chin and meeting Sephiroth’s eyes dead on.

“They will tear you apart.” Sephiroth warned. “And Denzel too. You’ve done him no favors today.”

“Again, more than you have.” Cloud said, crossing his arms. “You’re from the plate, aren’t you. You all are. You think, 'what’s one kid’s life thrown in the trash? I’ve got a fancy covert op going.’ and you wipe your hands of it.”

“There are more lives than one at stake.”

“Yeah, from what the kid told me, there are two. So if you want to do your job for a second, do some protecting or some serving, tell me how to get downstairs to where you’ve been torturing that guy the kid mentioned.”

He’d thought Sephiroth’s eyes were hard before. Now they were furious. His hand lifted. Clinched in Cloud’s suit shirt.

“I don’t think you understand your position.” He said, cold and hard.

“See, I knew the minute I saw you you were too pretty for Corneo to have gotten his hands on you.” Cloud sighed. “Should have made you for a cop, but frankly I thought you were too pretty for that too.”

“Strife,” Sephiroth said with a warning in his voice. “This is not some idle investigation, and not some simple gang. I am trying to do my job. I am trying to help people, same as you are.”

“By workin’ for a guy on the Midgar P.D. bankroll?” Cloud asked, arching his eyebrow.

Sephiroth went still, staring. Oh, thought Cloud, looking at his thunderstorm expression. He doesn’t know that.

“Oh man,” Cloud said softly, ”hey, look buddy, how long’ve you been in here?”

“Strife—”

“No, I’m serious. Indulge me. How long’ve you been doing his dirty work, waiting for your bosses to move forward with the operation?”

He saw Sephiroth hesitate and knew the answer. Too long.

“Look, man, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Cloud said softly. “But it’s all connected. Shinra, the Don, Midgar P.D.… They’re in this big-money circle-jerk together, keeping the status quo. You seem like a good guy, I like that you seemed worried about the kid, so I’m going ta give it to ya straight.”

Cloud reached up and boldly squeezed Sephiroth’s shoulder. (Wow. Solid muscle under that shirt...)

“I think your bosses just made you work for a mob boss and told ya it was an undercover assignment.”

Sephiroth’s brows furrowed, and his lips parted in a mixture of confusion, bewilderment, and a little disgust.

“Who in the twelve hells do you think you are?” He asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Just a detective.” Cloud said with a shrug. “But I tell you what. I’m not the one workin’ under a mob boss, breakin’ fingers for him, bringing back damning intel to the cops day after day and gettin’ told ‘just a little longer.’ Unless I’ve missed my mark.”

“You have.” Sephiroth said darkly, eyes narrowed. “Get out, Cloud Strife. Before I have to shoot you and make it look like I wanted to.”

Cloud blinked again, then smiled.

“I’ll be, you are one of the good ones.” Cloud said cheerfully. “I thought you were just gunna shoot me however this went down, just to cover your hide. If you ever get out of this outfit, come talk to me, huh? I’d love to buy you a drink.”

Sephiroth was still staring, but there was something else in his expression. Something a little awkward. Cloud smiled wider.

“Non-professionally.” He added with a wink. “But not until you’re not workin’ for the Don anymore, alright? I like to let a little moral greyness go, but this place is full-on morally shitstained.”

“You should really go now.” Sephiroth told him, though he still seemed off balance. It was a look that suited him, Cloud thought.

“I will.” Cloud said, giving him a little salute and stepping outside the room Sephiroth had pulled him into.

He brushed off his jacket and touched a finger to his lips shyly, in a show for anyone watching. Nothing to worry about. Just a covert closet makeout. You know. Between a PI and a bodyguard. Like normal.

He turned to leave. But not the way he came.

After all, he had to pick someone up from the basement first.

* * *

He had known the place would be sleazy. He hadn’t know it would be ‘I don’t want to touch the banister’ sleazy. He had heard people talk about the Honeybee Inn like it was gross. He wanted to rub all their faces on the walls here.

He knew his time for walking confidently was wearing out. Even if Sephiroth hadn’t reported on him, the other toughs in the room would probably be realizing something was out of the ordinary by now, or at least getting close to that conclusion.

The good news, Cloud told himself, was that he’d finally found the basement.

The bad news was the guy with the gun outside it. He probably should have seen that one coming. Still, he’d see what he could do. He walked around the corner with his hands lifted.

“Hi!” He said. “I’m looking for the torture chamber. Did I find it?”

It had the desired effect. The guard was confused just a moment too long. Cloud punched him in his five-o'clock shadow. He went down like a lump.

“Snooze button.” Cloud giggled to himself, trying not to think about the pain in his knuckles or the terrified thunder of his heartbeat.

He was making a hell of an enemy here.

The moment he opened the door and heard the muffled sobbing of a broken human being, he cast aside any regrets he might have had.

“Hey.” He whispered to the guy locked in a little cell. Oh man, he’d thought the rest of the house was gross.

“Hey.” He said again when the man didn’t budge. “It’s okay, man, I’m here to get you out.”

The guy wasn’t doing great, but Cloud knew a certain flower girl who might be able to patch him up. The main problem he ran into was that the poor guy couldn’t help but choke back sounds of pain when he moved. He was just that torn up. He could still move, alright, though Cloud suspected that had more to do with desperation than ability. But everything jostled or ached. He was trying to be quiet. Cloud could see the desperate frustration in his expression clear as day.

“I am so sorry to ask you this,” Cloud said, finally getting the guy unhooked from the last of his chains. “But can I give you my tie to bite down on? I think I’m going to have to carry you out of here, and I know it’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

“Don’t be sorry,” The man choked out. “I will owe you for this.”

“Eh,” Cloud said, pulling off his tie. “You can pay me if we live. What’s your name?”

The scarred man smiled, a twinkle in his eye despite his grievous injuries.

“I’ll find you.” He said. Cloud believed him.

“Right,” Cloud said. “Now, standard protocol for my rescue ops, if we get captured or I die, go to Seventh Heaven. It's a bar in Sector Seven. Ask for Barret. He’ll yell at you, but he’ll help. And if I DO die, and you don’t, paying him for me would make us even.”

“Got it.” Said the scarred man, rolling Cloud’s tie into quite a respectable gag in the few of his dexterous fingers that were not broken.

“Right,” Cloud said, and scooped the tortured man up, ignoring his muffled groan. “Let’s mosey.”

* * *

Cloud had been known, in his years, to toss around the words ‘almost made it’ lightly. He’d said it to Tifa during their backcourt basketball skirmishes while the watching teenagers laughed at his ineptitude. He’d said it to Barret when the man had to catch him and haul him into a moving car when Cloud missed his jump. He’d said it to his mom, winking, when she asked him why he was hiding a cut on his cheek with a poorly color-matched foundation.

(He’d asked the girls at the honeybee for advice after that one.)

But this time, this time for real, he almost made it. He got so close to making it that the guy he was carrying did. Not _elegantly_ or _comfortably_ , but there was nothing elegant or comfortable about the entire day, so Cloud didn’t deduct any points from himself.

He hadn’t been able to get to the sewers on his return trip. But he had found Corneo’s bedroom. And he’d found the right lever.

Then they’d found him. He’d had a choice to make. He’d made it fast enough as to not think too much about it. If he dropped down into the sewers, it’d leave the trap door open, and they’d be shot to death. Easy choice. He dropped the guy he was rescuing on the floor, lifting his hands. Made eye contact with him as the guards were yelling. He winked.

The lifted hands worked just as well the second time as the first. It slowed everyone down that he wasn’t aggressive. Slowed them down enough for him to haul the lever, open up the trap door. Drop his rescuee down below.

Then he shoved it back into place and kicked it hard.

It didn’t break, but it did bend alarmingly. That was the best he had.

“Son of a—” the guard in the door yelled, and opened fire. Cloud sprinted straight for him, tackling him to the floor. He didn’t stop to tussle with him. Only tackled him, rolled off him, and ran.

There were guards coming in the front door, so Cloud veered, sprinting upstairs. The pain hit him abruptly, and he silenced it with a vicious thought. Get out FIRST, THEN scream about the bullet he’d taken to his arm. That could have been a _lot_ worse.

He silently lowered his getting shot percentage, but he kept his infiltration score the same. He hadn’t been caught while he was acting natural after all. He’d been acting decidedly unnatural.

He gripped the banister to take the corner sharper, sprinting towards the nearest window. Any way out would do. At this point, with the whole place coming alive in a blazing alarm, he’d take dying outside. That would count as a win, he told himself.

He saw Sephiroth step into the hallway in front of him, and he stumbled on his feet. He pressed his hand to his side, gasping for breath. He stared at Sephiroth. A man who’d seemed genuinely worried about Denzel’s fate. About what Cloud had done. About his work here, whatever he believed that to be.

He believes in the greater good, Cloud thought numbly. He’ll kill me.

He glanced back at the men sprinting up after him. Two Snakes and Mikes among them. Man, Cloud thought. What a mess.

He decided he’d rather die to a good man.

“Shoot him!” Screamed someone. Someone important, Cloud guessed, from his tone. At last the Don made his appearance, and he was too busy to appreciate it.

He turned towards Sephiroth and kept running. Pressing towards the window behind him. His expression was set, his decision made. He’d die charging the man. Then at least if anyone made a stink about Sephiroth having killed him–and they would make a stink about him one day, Cloud was sure. One day, when he outlived his usefulness, he’d fall under their boot too–It could be claimed as self-defense easily enough.

Sephiroth sighted down his gun, and Cloud braced for it. He got hit before Sephiroth fired, a splatter of red from his stomach, and an unstoppable agony.

Sephiroth fired a moment later. Fired and missed, Cloud thought in dazed disbelief. Hadn’t taken him for the sort of guy who missed.

Behind him, someone screamed. Loud and shocked and building with other voices behind it. Cloud staggered. Turned. Watched as the assorted tough guys crouched around Don Corneo’s body.

Huh, thought Cloud.

Then there were arms on him. Strong and tight and hurrying. Cloud staggered, but forced himself forward. There was more gunfire, but it was late. Two bodies went careening out of the upstairs window of the dead Don’s mansion in a shower of glass.

Cloud grabbed onto Sephiroth as they fell. When they landed it was in a tangled pile. Something cracked in Cloud’s leg, but he ignored it. The screaming from above was still going, and he dragged himself upright, halfway bracing himself against Sephiroth. The man choked out a sharp sound, but dragged himself upwards as well.

“Garden,” Sephiroth gasped, and towed Cloud forward. Cloud, limping and exhausted and _wow_ that was a lot of blood, forced himself to follow.

By the time the men had gotten around each other to the window they were gone.

* * *

“Nice garden,” Cloud commented, his breath stalling in his lungs around the words. Mother of the gods but bullets hurt. He lowered his score another notch. He really shouldn’t have taken this job.

In answer Sephiroth dragged him a little further, into a covered corner with some safety. He lowered Cloud to the ground, one arm bracing his shoulders.

“I can’t believe you did that.” Cloud whispered, a dazed grin on his face. He lifted his hand to lock it in the front of Sephiroth’s shirt.

“Please stop talking.” Sephiroth said, his voice shaking, his face pale under the cold sweat he’d broken out in. “You’re bleeding too much to be talking.”

His hand pressed down hard over the exit wound in Cloud’s side, and Cloud choked back a scream. He arched and twisted despite himself. Felt Sephiroth hold him tighter.

“S’fine,” Cloud gasped. “Holy shit. Holy shit, you killed—” He smothered a hysterical laugh. “You killed Don Corneo.”

Sephiroth didn’t reply. Cloud felt him shudder, and felt a sick sort of certainty strike him. He’d thought he recognized the paleness of Sephiroth’s features. The agony etched in his brow.

“Where’d they get you?” Cloud asked.

“Back.” Sephiroth said shortly. “Not as bad as yours.”

Cloud twisted, trying to see. All he saw was long silver hair, stained red in the dirt. He whistled.

“That’ll teach the two of us to turn our backs on a gunman,” Cloud quipped, laughing around a cough and glancing up at Sephiroth. Something hot and wet worked its way down from the corner of his mouth.

Sephiroth only ground his teeth, fear clouding his expression as he pressed harder on Cloud’s injury, trying to slow the bleeding. Cloud carefully rested his free hand on top of Sephiroth’s in comfort. His other was still clenched in the man’s shirt, and he wasn’t sure he could have made himself let go for anything.

“You have a phone?” Cloud asked hopefully.

“I already tried calling for backup.” Sephiroth said softly, shaking his head.

“Hm?”

“After I talked to you. I tried calling for backup.”

“They said no?”

“They said to kill you.” Sephiroth said grimly. “That you were a liability to the operation. That we were too far in now.”

“And you said?” Cloud asked, genuinely curious, glad for something else to think about. Something other than ow, ow, ow, ow.

“I asked them what, exactly, that operation was again.” Sephiroth muttered. “I’m glad you didn’t hear them stutter. You’d have been terribly smug about it, I can tell.”

“My hero.” Cloud said softly, smiling, meaning every word.

“Don’t.” Sephiroth pleaded.

“Phone,” Cloud repeated. “I have,” he sucked in a breath. It stuck in his lungs, and he kicked and arched as he fought to keep himself from coughing, hearing the sounds of men yelling getting closer. Wow this sucked. “I have friends. They’ll come.”

Sephiroth shifted, settling Cloud against one of his thighs rather than setting him down completely. He kept one hand on Cloud’s injury, slick with blood. Cloud squeezed that hand gently in comfort as Sephiroth fumbled with the other.

“You are so pretty.” Cloud breathed, not even with it enough to feel embarrassed.

“Number, Strife.” Sephiroth insisted. “Give me the number.”

Cloud gave it from memory. Barret was going to kill him for sending two strays and one pickup call in the same night. It was a school night even. He’d have to make it up to Marlene. If he lived.

Sephiroth held the phone up to Cloud’s ear for him. Cloud saw him shudder. Waver. He forced his hand to release Sephiroth’s jacket, sliding it behind him. He found his back wet with blood, and fumbled for the bullet wound, trying to apply pressure as well.

“Spiky!” Barret yelled over the phone, loud enough that Sephiroth could probably hear him too, and hopefully not loud enough that anyone else could.

“Hey,” Cloud said mildly. “You have a stray wash up there?”

“Where are ya?” Barret was already yelling. “Tifa’s on her way to the Don’s. The kid told us what you did, but you didn’ show up! What’d you get mixed up in? And who’s phone is this?”

“Long story,” Cloud gasped.”We’re in the Don’s garden. We don’t have long. Can you tell Tifa?”

“Who the hell is we?”

“Guy who’s holding my guts in. Say hi, Seph.”

“Technically no guts yet. Just your blood, I think.” Sephiroth murmured, flinching as Cloud remembered he was trying to apply pressure and pressed harder against his bleeding back.

“Alright,” Barret said sharply. “Here’s the deal. I’mma tell her you’re in the garden, and what YOU’RE gunna do, is two things. First, stay alive. Second, shoot straight the hell up in the air the minute you hear the old truck rumbling up, and third, Stay Alive!”

“Got it.” Cloud said. “Do you still have your gun, Seph?”

“Sephiroth.” The man corrected, giving him a strange look. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll try.” Cloud said, exhausted. “We’re hanging up, Barret. They’re close. One last thing, check the passage if you can? There’s one more stray heading your way but he’s in rough shape. Could use the old Aerith-Special patch job.”

“Gods damn it, Spiky!” Barret said, though he didn’t sound furious like he should have. He sounded afraid. Cloud wished he’d be furious.

“S’okay.” Cloud murmured, letting his eyes fall closed. He was so tired. “You’ll get paid.”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth was saying, his voice low and intent as the phone was pulled away.

“I’m here.” Cloud whispered. “I’m okay. Just listening for the truck.”

“Stay with me.” Sephiroth said softly. “Hold on.”

The truck wasn’t much later. Roaring so loud it was unmistakable. Particularly with the crash of the garden’s front gate coming down and the confused yelling of guards.

Cloud smiled up at Sephiroth as the man pointed his gun straight up in the air and fired.

“So cool.” Cloud whispered. “Date me.”

Either that one did it or Sephiroth had lost enough blood by that point to loose some inhibitions too, because as the truck barreled towards them and the confused guards started firing, Sephiroth laughed wildly.

Tifa nearly ran them over, but it gave them enough cover to scramble inside. Neither of them was coordinated, but they held onto each other, and the moment they were even partway in Tifa was holding onto them too, dragging them the rest of the way inside.

Sephiroth was still laughing as she pulled away in a shriek of tires, plowing over shrubs and flowerbeds before bursting through the other side. Sephiroth laughed, exhausted and terrified and in agony. And Cloud, crumbled beside him in the footwell in front of the passenger’s seat, wrapped him up in a tight hug and held him as he fell apart.

* * *

“We could change it to ‘Strife n’ ‘Roth Detective Agency.” Cloud offered as he frowned at the label on the door to his office.

“Har har.” Sephiroth commented, leaning against his cane in that fashionable way he had that made it look less necessary and more like a fashion accessory. Not that Aerith thought it would be necessary for him much longer.

Cloud, on his crutches, was deeply envious.

“Just remember I haven’t cleaned up since getting shot, alright?” Cloud said, and pushed the door open.

All things considered, he thought, it wasn’t too bad. It was his office, not his bedroom. He kept it neat enough, aside from a couple too many coffee mugs in use at one time.

Besides. Sephiroth had already seen his bedroom.

“So I figure,” Cloud said mildly, “there’s not a ton of space, but if we shift things around we should be able to both have some work space without sacrificing anything. I was thinking maybe moving this desk to the back, putting another desk facing it, and then just setting up a seating area instead of talking to clients over a desktop? Sephiroth?”

He looked over to the man, and found him standing in front of his cork board.

What had started as a small collection of newspaper clippings had been completely overwhelmed. Letters covered it now. Beloved letters. Cloud knew most of them by heart.

> _“Dear mistr Cloud, thank you for bringing my mommie home”_
> 
> _“Detective, thank you for the help in locating my dog. I know it may seem silly, but he’s all this old man—”_
> 
> _“I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done for our family. Thank you, thank you, thank you. One day, when we have money, we’ll—”_
> 
> _“Der Clod tahnk you for carry me home even tho i yelld in youer ear mom sais you are a gud man”_

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” Sephiroth whispered, staring at the letters.

Cloud’s latest, from Denzel’s father, now safely in Rocket Town with his son, was in his pocket to be added to the board. He had no letter of thanks from his basement rescue, who he now knew was named Veld. But he had something better.

“You were instrumental in freeing a high-ranking Shinra official who was helped expose the corruption of the Midgar PD.” Cloud said, leaning on his desk. “You might not get a thank you card for that, but it that doesn’t make you less of a good person.”

“I worked for Corneo for years.” Sephiroth said wearily. “I wonder how much longer I would have if not for you.”

“Not much, I think.” Cloud said, lifting a pad of paper from his desk and scrawling on it. “From what Veld found they were already looking into terminating you. Like, pew pew terminating.”

“Descriptive.”

“I have a gift with words. Anyhow, you’ll see soon enough if you decide to stick around. The most important jobs are usually the ones that don’t get you a thank you note. But here. To start your collection.”

He tore off the sheet of paper and handed it to Sephiroth. The man took it in a gentle hand. He smiled down at it after a beat, and Cloud kindly pretended not to notice that he was a little teary eyed. To be fair, so was he.

It was going to be so nice to have a partner…

> _“Dear Sephiroth,_
> 
> _You saved my life. I’ll never finish thanking you for that._
> 
> _–Your Cloud.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Art Students AU


	16. Art Students

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth was the star of the art program before he made a sharp turn into the Modern. Cloud was never anyone. Just a dumb kid painting flowers. But is anyone really as simple as their style?
> 
> (Hi, Boomchick here, trust me on this one! It's one of my secret favorites of the challenge!)

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

Cloud scarfed down his sandwich in record time, his cheeks still full as he pushed open the door to Dio Hall. His portfolio bag was carried in his left hand, and his backpack was slung over his right shoulder. There was a travel mug of coffee tucked under his left arm, and his right hand was balling up the wrapper of his sandwich as he struggled to chew before he made it to class.

He would have been more embarrassed by his harried state, but he looked just like literally everyone else in the hallway around him.

College, he thought, and slam-dunked his wrapper in a trashcan.

Almost everyone was in class already. He tried not to let himself look too hard at their projects. His own he pulled reverently from his bag, placing it on the easel at his station. He stepped back to look at it and let out a quiet breath. 

It was exactly as he’d wanted it to be. It wasn’t his _best_ piece of art, and certainly not his favorite, but it was personal, and powerful. Their professor had told them to dig deep on this piece, and he had.

The watering can was lovingly painted and delicate. The drops of water painstakingly rendered. The sprouts in the ground fragile. He’d painted them with fresh and whole at first, then added layer after layer. It hadn’t been right leaving them whole. They weren't whole. So he’d torn and tattered them where they stood trying to grow, those sad little crops. The watering can beading with droplets of water, still trying. The ominous storm in the distance. The glimpse of home behind.

He risked a glance around the room, and felt his expression tighten. 

Genesis had painted himself. Again. It was a good one, though. And thankfully not a nude this time. It was him on stage, but a look like fear on his face, not his usual bravado. He’d taken it literally, Cloud guessed. Painted out his fear. Freezing in the spotlight he so craved. Cloud mentally gave him an A. 

He glanced to Angeal and had to smile. The man had sculpted a rough hand, suspended so delicately on fishing wire that it looked like it was floating, reaching down. Someone pulling him up, Cloud guessed. That was beautiful. And it was a hell of a hand too. Strong and wrinkled at the joints without being upsetting or uncanny. He must have taken hours and hours pouring over it, building the memory. Cloud mentally gave him A+.

Cloud let his gaze skim over Rufus and his piece. He hated Rufus's art, and this one seemed no different. He’d brought in a fishbowl full of photographs of homeless people. Cloud didn’t want to know what the trust-fund baby shoe-in thought he was doing with a project like that on a personal exploration assignment.

And then his eyes landed on Sephiroth’s piece. It was mounted on an easel, like Cloud’s, but it looked more like a shadow box than a painting. Cloud tilted his head, trying to see inside it, but there was a strange mist inside the box. Cloud traced the piping from the box to the floor, where a little machine was chugging away. Piping something inside.

Well, Cloud thought. That was Sephiroth for you. Always trying to do something different.

The worst part was, he could have been better than any of them. Cloud had seen his painting two years ago. Seven feet by seven feet of canvas that he’d stretched himself onto a frame Angeal helped him make. The painting he’d called simply **War**. It had been gruesome. Complex. Detailed. So full of emotion and fear and movement that people felt dizzy when they looked at it too long. The school had shown it over and over again that year. Cloud had wanted to hate it. Had wanted to hate Sephiroth for his success.

But damn it all, it was _so_ good.

And yet somehow here they were working towards their final exhibition as seniors and Sephiroth had shown up with another one of his weird modern pieces. Cloud tried not to be disappointed. He'd worked hard to get into the same class as Sephiroth in the hopes of arriving to a show preview like this one and seeing another of those seven foot canvases when he entered this show previews. Or even better, to catch Sephiroth’s eye personally. Maybe model for one of his pieces, like Genesis had back in year one.

Back when those two had still gotten along. Before Genesis had seen **War** , and reacted with all the hatred and jealousy that Cloud had meant to feel instead of awe.

Cloud had already seen Zack’s piece for this show, but he gave his friend a reassuring smile when he saw him, shooting him a small thumbs up at the look of Zack’s canvas beside him.

Painted on it was Zack’s face, grinning. Smiling with such a warmth that it radiated from the canvas. Or what had been a canvas. Zack had sliced it nearly to shreds It was so torn and tattered that you had to press your palms over the corners and slide them over the oil paints to pull the pieces into place. Had to ruin it bit by bit with the touch of hands to see the full image. The more people looked at it, the more people tried to see that beaming smile, the faster the painting would be destroyed.

Zack had titled the piece **Hold it Together** , and Cloud thought it was his best yet. Certainly the deepest. Zack had grinned at him for the praise. Cloud had tried not to be shaken by how much Zack looked like his torn canvas when he smiled like that.

They all heard Professor Scarlet before she entered the room. Her heels clacked down the hallways like a drummer for an enemy war battalion. Sephiroth had made a piece of art about it a few semesters ago. He had called it **Approach**. It was a drum with red ink on it and a pair of drumsticks attached to a timed mechanism, tapping out a steady rhythm.

Scarlet hadn’t gotten it, but everyone in the room but her recognized the splash of red and the steady rhythm. They’d all been struggling to contain laughter while Sephiroth blandly told her it represented war. But the moment she had turned her back, Sephiroth had glanced to Zack and winked so obviously that the whole room had to cram their fists into their teeth to silence their laughter and spare themselves Scarlet’s wrath.

Now, though, the room was silent with anticipation, save for the soft whir of Sephiroth’s machine. Scarlet walked into the room, dripping red, and smiled at them all cruelly. Bad mood, Cloud thought sorrowfully. She never smiled at them when she was feeling generous.

“Well.” She said, cracking her knuckles. “As you all know today is the day I get to look at my precious students' first pieces for our end of year exhibit. I can’t wait to see your first offerings. Now all of you, listen closely and learn from your classmates as well as from your own critique, won’t you?”

Oh gods, her voice was like maraschino cherries today. Not even just one of them. Like a cocktail with three of the dripping candied offerings, all sugar and burn. Cloud swallowed around sudden fear and glanced back to his piece to see if it was still good.

He couldn’t tell anymore.

The critique passed in a haze of terror. Angeal passed with flying colors, obviously. He called his piece **Honor** , and Cloud didn’t get it, exactly, but he still loved it. It was evocative.

Rufus’s piece was called **Disposable**. A bunch of photographs he’d taken with a literal disposable camera of 'the thrown away people of humanity.' If it was anyone else’s project, Cloud might have considered it at least well-intentioned. But it was Rufus’s. So not only did he hate it, he hated Rufus that much more for having put it together.

But Scarlet called it ‘brave’ and congratulated him. It made Cloud want to strangle her.

Genesis’s piece, **Center Stage** , she considered a long while. “You’re not pushing yourself artistically.” She finally commented. “But it’s honest enough, and I’ll take that. It’s a good piece, Genesis. I'm just waiting for something _exceptional_.”

It was by far the kindest of her negative critiques, but it was still negative. Cloud thought secretly she took it easy on Genesis because he liked red too. But this time she left him looking shaken and worried.

Cloud stiffened in worry for Zack when she reached him. Watched her reach out when he instructed her to. He was still smiling, even though Cloud knew he was scared. Cloud watched her pull the edges of canvas together. Then he watched her carefully reach over and touch Zack’s shoulder, ever so briefly.

“If I may,” she said, “I’d like to take a photo of you with this after class. I think it may be the most evocative I’ve seen, and I would love to use it as an example in the future if you’d allow me.”

Cloud had never seen Zack so proud, and he caught everyone else in the room smiling like he was. Except for Rufus. But then, Rufus was the only one of them who seemed able to resist Zack’s charms.

Sephiroth was next, and Cloud tried to brace himself for hearing some praise of his latest mechanical thing.

“Sephiroth.” Scarlet said slowly. “Care to introduce this little… Piece to me?”

“It’s called 'View of God'.” Sephiroth said, his voice low and calm.

“Not much of a view.” Scarlet said, and Cloud watched her eyes trace down to the small pump under it. “Are you fogging it?”

“Just cooling it.” Sephiroth said quietly. “The condensation fogs the glass. Moving closer to try seeing through it only makes your breath fog it worse.”

“Hm.” Said Scarlet. She did not try to stand closer. And she was looking at Sephiroth rather than his piece.

“I can hardly grade you on a piece of art you’ve made it impossible for me to see.” Scarlet said, slow and dangerous.

Cloud saw Sephiroth’s shoulders tighten. Saw his spine straighten. He’d come ready for a fight.

“The art,” he said coldly, “is in not being able to see it clearly.”

“Or you didn’t finish and you’re bluffing.”

“There is something behind the glass, Scarlet. But no one can see it clearly.”

Scarlet stared at him then kicked the plug out of his device. Cloud saw Sephiroth flinch. But he didn’t think it was about being called out. He didn’t think it was at all what Scarlet thought.

The way Sephiroth reacted only made him more certain. The man lifted his piece and turned it around, setting it face-down on the easel. He glared at her, his jaw tight.

“You had so much promise at the beginning.” Scarlet said, her voice deadly soft. “Be better.”

When she turned that predator’s gaze on Cloud, Cloud was still watching Sephiroth. Watching his lips tighten as if he were holding back emotion. He glanced to Genesis and Angeal, the two who would have stood up for him once. They were whispering to each other. No one seemed to care.

“Strife.” She said, and Cloud remembered to be afraid for himself.

“Ma’am.” He said. “Uh, professor.”

“You’ve drawn me flowers again.” She said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

Cloud’s instinct was to tuck his chin and apologize. But he thought of Sephiroth’s hurt look and only felt anger towards her.

“You asked me to draw you something personal,” He said coldly. “This is ‘Mom's Crying.’ Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s nothing.”

He saw Scarlet’s fury. Saw the others in the room turn to stare at his backtalk.

“If I see any more cheap flower paintings in your final show,” she said with a crisp finality, “I will fail you out of my class, Strife. Show me what you’re made of. Do _anything_ else.”

She left before he could scream at her. But he wanted to. There were angry tears brimming in his eyes, damn it all. He always cried when he got frustrated. He scrubbed at his face, turning to his piece as Scarlet addressed the class. Everyone was quiet as she spoke. As she warned them. That their time in art _school_ was nearly over. That it was time for them to think about what mark they were going to make on the art _world_.

He wondered if it terrified everyone like it terrified him. When he looked at Sephiroth beside him, he saw the man not angry or frustrated or upset. He only looked tired. Cloud didn't know why it hurt so much to see him so tired. Maybe it was how no one was looking at him. Maybe it was the canvas, still turned backwards to avoid prying eyes.   
  
Either way, Cloud only barely waited until Scarlet left the room before he reached out, touching Sephiroth’s arm lightly.

“Hey,” he said, “if I give you time to plug it in and get it working again, can I see it?”

Sephiroth paused from where he’d been about to yank the cord out of his piece. He held very still a moment under Cloud’s hand.

“You would want to?” He asked at last, looking to Cloud.

“If it’s okay.”

Sephiroth studied him a moment, then nodded quietly. He stooped, plugging his piece back in.

“It will take a moment.” He murmured. “If you want to talk to the others a while.”

“You don’t want to?” Cloud asked.

“No.” Sephiroth said softly, looking to the other students as they crowded around the overwhelmed Zack to congratulate him. “I will tell Zack how glad I am for him later. For now I think… A moment alone…”

“For sure.” Cloud said, and moved away from him.

He took a moment with the others, each of them being encouraged by Zack to take a turn, to slide the image together. He looked at Genesis’s piece as the man stood in front of it, his hand clamped over his mouth and his brows twisted in worry. Angeal was beside him, rubbing his back after having given Zack a squeezing hug and a ruffle of his hair. His floating hand was being cautiously observed by Rufus, who was a no-good rich boy but who at least so far hadn’t stooped to sabotage. Cloud didn’t bother looking at Rufus’s work, but he stopped by all the others in the room, taking a moment to look it over, congratulating or consoling them.

Most of them had packed up to go by the time he turned back to Sephiroth and received a small nod. The man was calm again. Impassive and relaxed. Cloud would have been sobbing in the bathroom for sure.

“You gunna be okay?” Zack was asking him, a hand on his shoulder, trying to fight through his own elation to be a support for Cloud.

“Yeah.” Cloud said, smiling. “It’s just one show. I can paint all the flowers I want once I’m not in her class. I’m just going to be sticking around a little while, alright? I’ll catch you later.”

Zack glanced up to Sephiroth, and Cloud saw his smile brighten a little. He gripped Cloud’s shoulder and leaned in a little closer.

“Don’t mention War and you’ll get along great. Remember, he’s more than one piece.” He whispered, pulling back to give Cloud a wink before walking out of the room, his artwork carefully tucked away in his portfolio bag.

Cloud let out a breath and walked back to join Sephiroth next to their pieces, the only two still up in the room.

“Is it okay?” He asked quietly. “She didn’t break anything?”

“Not this time.” Sephiroth said, a half-smile on his face. “I’ll duct tape the next one down.”

Cloud laughed, feeling himself perk up at Sephiroth’s attitude. Not 'I won’t plug anything in next time,' but 'I’ll make it harder for her to unplug.'

When Sephiroth turned the piece, he did so not with dramatic flare like Genesis would have, or showmanship like Zack. He just turned it and stepped awkwardly away.

Cloud moved forward, approaching the piece slowly. He was aware of his breath in an unusual way, he found, knowing it would fog the surface. He stepped closer anyhow, his hands kept safely down at his side.

There was something past the fog. Something that was colorful. That had a familiar shape. Some sort of motion to it. Maybe a face? A body? Some part of Cloud itched to try wiping the glass, but he kept his hands to himself. He breathed out slowly, watching his breath mist over the glass, his desire to get a clearer look only making it harder to see.

“Wow.” Breathed Cloud, and watched his voice obscure the image further, almost blocking it completely from view.

Sephiroth shifted uneasily beside him.

“You don’t have to pander.” He murmured. “I know it’s a little pretentious.”

Cloud frowned, glancing to him.

“Rufus’s was pretentious.” He said, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t think this is. I might not get it, but I can tell you put in thought. And it gives me this feeling. That’s what your work’s about, right? Feeling?”

“Yes.” Sephiroth said, sounding relieved. Cloud watched him roll his shoulders, breathing out slowly as if releasing tension. “Can you tell me what feeling it gives you? If you don’t mind. I appreciate you looking…”

“It feels helpless,” Cloud said, looking back to the work of art. Was that a flash of green behind the fog. Leaning in only made it disappear all the faster. “It’s frustrating and sad. Because I know whatever’s back there, it’s important. But I can’t reach it.”

When he glanced to Sephiroth again, the smile on his lips was so sweet and soft that Cloud felt his heart stutter at the genuine gratitude in that look.

“Thank you.” Sephiroth whispered.

“Was that right, then?” Cloud asked softly.

“I don’t usually consider there to be a right and wrong in what I do.” Sephiroth said with a small shrug. “But… That’s how it makes me feel too, yes. That’s what I made it to feel like.”

Cloud looked back to the small box and its near-invisible painting.

“It must have been hard.” Cloud said softly. “Whatever put this inside you.”

Sephiroth was silent. When Cloud turned to look at him, he found Sephiroth looking over at his own piece of art, with its tattered sprouts and stormclouds. He flushed instantly, about to stutter out some explanation about it not being up to par, already starting to hate that which only an hour ago he’d been so proud of.

“She’s an idiot.” Sephiroth sighed, his arms crossed. “Though at least she saw the value in Zack’s work. This is beautiful, Cloud. The layers of it. Like if you peeled it down you’d find something different. You’ve built this canvas up so much that the water droplets are in relief. It has such a feeling to it. A nostalgic sort of sorrow and hopefulness.”

Cloud stared, fixated, as Sephiroth leaned in, pulling his hair back over his shoulder to keep it away from the canvas.

“I’ve always liked your textures,” Sephiroth murmured, his voice kept carefully controlled to keep his breath from affecting the painting, as if it were a Rembrandt. “How wet the soil is, how tattered the leaves. How soft the fall of water looks.”

“Woah... You want to critique all my flower paintings? Because I could get used to that sort of comment.” Cloud asked, laughing weakly. “Thank you. I really… I really liked this one.”

“Your mother’s tears, right?” Sephiroth asked, looking to Cloud before turning back to his painting, stepping back to see the whole piece.

“It’s okay if you don’t get it.” Cloud muttered. “I know I’m just the pastel kid in a room full of _real_ artists.”

“You listen to Scarlet too much.” Sephiroth said softly. “You should listen to yourself instead. Just because she doesn’t understand it doesn’t make it nothing.”

The smile he offered Cloud made butterflies flutter in his stomach.

“Well,” Cloud stuttered after a moment, “at least she didn’t destroy anyone’s work this time or actually yell at us, right?”

Sephiroth chuckled softly, bending to properly unhook his machine. Cloud averted his eyes and kept them on his own work as Sephiroth packed away. He might want to know what Sephiroth had painted inside that box, but _Sephiroth_ didn't want him to know.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said, drawing his attention.

“Hm?” Cloud said softly.

“You…” Sephiroth started, hefting his bag. “That is... Would you like to get a drink together?”

“It’s the middle of the day.” Cloud pointed out awkwardly.

“Maybe,” Sephiroth admitted. “But I have to rework my final show, I think. If I want to graduate. And I thought maybe you’d like… To join me?”

“Oh,” Cloud said softly. “So by drink, like…”

“A coffee on the way to the studios space?” Sephiroth offered. “My treat.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. But I would like to. It was kind of you. To look. I know it’s…” He tightened his hand on his bag. “Disappointing.”

Cloud clenched his jaw and pulled his painting down carefully, sliding it into his own portfolio bag.

“I wasn’t disappointed.” He said firmly. “Do you have to work inside, or would you be alright with sitting outside a while?”

Sephiroth hesitated, wavering, looking for a moment like he might break and run. Then he smiled softly.

“It would be nice to work outside,” He murmured. “A change of pace might do me good today.”

They stopped by the coffee shop under the dining hall. Sephiroth bought their drinks, and Cloud watched him pour an ungodly amount of honey into his coffee and sprinkle cinnamon on top.

“Is it good like that?” Cloud asked, cuddling his own black coffee, enjoying its heat against his chest. His thermos had nearly been empty, so he very much appreciated the refill.

“Want to try?” Sephiroth asked, holding the coffee out to him.

It was wildly sweet, but Cloud hummed in thought then pulled the lid off his thermos to sprinkle in some cinnamon of his own. When he turned back it was to find Sephiroth eyeing him carefully. His lips were hovering over the opening in his coffee cup, and Cloud flushed instantly, thinking of having just taken a sip.

“It’s nice.” Cloud muttered awkwardly. “So, uh, want to get some work in?”

“Can I see some of your sketches?” Sephiroth asked. “It’s okay if not. But I have an idea for our next project that might be fun for us both. If you're interested.”

Cloud blinked, then looked up to Sephiroth, smiling softly. _Our_ next project. That had a nice ring to it…

“Yeah.” He said, trying to sound cool about it. “I wouldn’t mind that. Here, come with me, I know a nice spot.”

They walked together in lazy companionship. Or the closest they could to it. Their bags were too heavy, and their portfolios too cumbersome. But they were together, and when the wind tugged at their portfolios they chuckled and commiserated with each other. And when they arched their backs to stretch out the strain of their bags they commented mildly on how many books they were lugging, and each admitted to having more than one sketchbook in their bags.

“I have three sizes,” Sephiroth muttered. “My large in my folio bag, and then my medium and small in my backpack.”

“I’ve got watercolor paper and a sketchbook in my bag and my official project planning book in my folio!” Cloud laughed, grinning in delight.

Sephiroth smiled back warmly, looking more comfortable than Cloud had ever seen him.

They settled in under Cloud’s favorite tree together. Cloud pulled his potato chips out of his bag with a sheepish smile at Sephiroth.

“Maybe for a snack when we’re done looking?” He offered. “I like to snack while I think.”

Sephiroth smiled, pulling his large journal out of his portfolio bag.

“I don’t know if any of these scribbles will actually mean anything to you.” He cautioned.

“And mine mostly just look like drawings of flowers.” Cloud chuckled.

“How about a guided tour then?” Sephiroth suggested softly. “I’ll show you through some of my sketches? And you do the same?”

“Yeah,” Cloud murmured, “I’d like that.”

When he looked up, Sephiroth’s head was tilted a little, and he was gazing just past Cloud. Cloud turned to look, but didn’t see anything in particular worth noting…

“Just tell me if it gets overwhelming or boring.” Sephiroth said, his eyes focusing back on Cloud's face quickly. “We don’t have to go for long, and you don’t owe me anything for the coffee or—”

“Sephiroth.” Cloud chuckled, surprised by his hesitance. “I’m interested. Come on. Let me see.”

Sephiroth brightened considerably. He opened his sketchbook, and Cloud found himself instantly immersed in a world of bewildering high-concept art pieces. Plans for a flowerbed full of faces that utilized some sort of technology to turn towards movement and sound sources called **Walk all Over Them**. Designs for a model city built around a donut-shaped setup, that would be suspended from the ceiling called **We Go Round**. A sketch of a chair with frayed ropes hanging off it called **Experimental Art (Escaped)**. They were delightful. Fun and strange and hilarious and unsettling.

Cloud opened his notebook too, showing Sephiroth his drawings of flowers. Their traditional meanings, and what he used them to represent. He quietly, cautiously, allowed Sephiroth access to his symbology. About himself, and his mother, and his comfort in nature that he tried to capture in art. The way he made sense of his world through the way it grew.

And Sephiroth showed him the pages in his notebook where he was processing grief. The mask he’d designed called **A Better Friend** , with its empty eyes and an expression set in fixed curiosity. A vanity mirror called **Work** that would repeat the phrase ‘this is brilliant’ every few minutes, but was set on a timer that wound down, leaving the gap between affirmation longer and longer.

There was an empty room. Just a drawing of an empty room. Written below it was the title: **After 'Him or Me'**

Cloud hesitated, then turned to his preliminary sketches for **Mom’s Crying**. He had started with sketches of his actual mother, then her shadow over the image, informing its direction.

“She cried all the time when I was younger.” Cloud said softly. “I used to draw a lot of water back then. I used to try to think of ways it could be--could be, like, her super power. I would think things, like, that she could water all the plants. Of course now I know the salt would--”

“Reality doesn’t have to enter into it.” Sephiroth said, propping his forearms over the picture of the empty room. Cloud could see small splotches of discoloration over his graphite lines, as if he’d cried while drawing that piece.

“I know.” Cloud whispered, smiling softly. “I guess I’ve just gotten a little defensive. Of what I do. I know it seems stupid in comparison to—”

“Mine’s about my mother too.” Sephiroth interrupted, his eyes forward. “She died when I was young. I was there when she was dying.”

Cloud’s eyes widened, and he turned to Sephiroth, ready to apologize for bringing up a painful memory. But he held his tongue when he saw Sephiroth’s expression. Fond and distant and sorrowful. He wasn’t done. Wasn’t looking for sympathy.

“I was beside her, and everything was so loud and frightening. I was young, and didn’t know what to do. She took my hand, and she was trying to tell me something. She was trying to tell me something, but it was so loud. Her breath was fogging on the oxygen mask. That’s all I ended up remembering. That fog that was her last words to me. I spent my whole life thinking that if I could have gotten through that fog…”

“Oh.” Cloud whispered, staring at Sephiroth. “Sephiroth. Wow.”

Sephiroth gave Cloud a small smile in appreciation of the comment, his eyes a little too bright with tears.

“It was a personal project.” He whispered.

“I could tell.” Cloud whispered in return, feeling the moment too intimate to speak loudly into. “Even without knowing. But Sephiroth, that’s… That’s beautiful. It really is.”

“I think yours is too.” Sephiroth murmured.

Cloud smiled, turning back to his journal and flipping the page. On the next one was a soft, vibrant rose.

“This was going to be my next one,” he murmured, touching the page gently. “I was going to paint it as lightly as possible. Just a shadow on the page. So soft you could only see it if the light wasn’t wrong on it. But I guess that won’t work now.”

“This was mine.” Sephiroth offered, turning the page in his notebook as well. Cloud glanced over and laughed warmly at the enormous letters proclaiming ‘PROLETARIAT DEFENSE TREBUCHET’ over a colorful background, covered with bright white spaces beneath the paint that laid out the foundation for some kind of structure.

“Were you going to just paint that, or build a trebuchet?” Cloud asked.

“Oh, build it” Sephiroth said, with a shrug. “This was just my mood-board for the piece, you know? But I don’t think that would go over well after this week. It’s just… Do you mind if I complain for a moment?”

“Oh, feel free, I think you’ve earned it.”

“Thank you. Ever since I painted War, that’s all anyone wants me to paint.”

Cloud blinked, looking to Sephiroth with a frown. The man was scowling at the grass.

“No matter what I do, or what I care about, all Scarlet and the Dean want from me is to make more art like that. To lock in on the one thing that made _them_ happy about my art. Never mind what it was like for me to paint it.”

“It was a beautiful piece” Cloud said uncertainly. But then he took a breath and asked. “What was it like to paint it?”

“It was a nightmare.” Sephiroth muttered, raking a hand through his hair. “It still is. It’s dark, and brutal, and violent, and I hated it. I painted everything I hated into it. And not only did it make me more miserable than I already was, it cost me my best friends in this damn school. Or more, it cost me one of them. And losing him lost me the other.”

“Genesis and Angeal?”

“Yes. Genesis was so frustrated with me for it. He called it my magnum opus. I told him he could have it if he liked the damn thing so much. He didn’t appreciate that.”

“Oof.” Said Cloud softly.

“I know what I do now is a little off the wall.” Sephiroth muttered. “And I know a lot of people liked it better when I was painting blood and sorrow in literal, awful, picture-perfect lines. But I love this. This is what I wanted to go into art to do. To make strange and lovely things out of ideas. To create and evoke feeling without ever needing to be so ham-handed as to paint a war in order to say ‘war is bad.’ Not that it even worked. They didn't hear what it was trying to say. All they want is a second War.”

“I didn’t realize,” Cloud said softly, reaching out to touch Sephiroth’s arm. “That must be so frustrating.”

“I’m kind of used to it.” Sephiroth chuckled. “My father never did approve of my work, even when it was literal. Still, thank you. You’ve been more than patient.”

“I might not know a lot about what you do,” Cloud said, “but now that I’m learning I kind of… Think it’s pretty great. And I feel like I should have gotten it sooner. If it’s okay, I’ll blame the way Scarlet talks about your work for, uh, clouding my vision?”

“Hm.” Sephiroth was back to smiling again, staring down happily at his sketchbook’s trebuchet design. “More than okay.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Someone’s dog was barking on its walk a little ways away. From one of the dorm windows nearby they could hear someone yelling at a video game. A kid was skateboarding down a nearby sidewalk, the whir and clack of his board going over the cracks in the pavement catching in the air.

“Are you into defending the proletariat then?” Cloud asked.

“I was going to point it towards Rufus.” Sephiroth said, grinning.

“Oh, extra unfair that you can't make it after that shitshow he put up today. It would be perfect.”

“I know it. ‘Disposable.’ Rude.” Sephiroth sneered in distaste. Then he tapped his finger against the blank corner of his canvas, as if trying to work himself up to something.

“So I suppose,” Sephiroth said finally, placing his hand on the top of his design, “that this brings me to my thought. If you’re still interested.”

Cloud was aware that Sephiroth was watching him again, but he was smiling down at his feather-soft painted flower.

“You bet I am.” He said warmly. “This has been so enlightening.”

Sephiroth chuckled softly, then reached out slowly. Cloud tensed for a moment, thinking, no, wait, not right now I have coffee breath. But then Sephiroth’s hand rested between his shoulder blades, and Cloud felt deft fingers tuck his shirt tag back under his collar.

“Sorry,” Sephiroth commented. “It had been bothering me.”

Cloud blinked down at his painting, then turned to Sephiroth with a soft smile.

“Tell me your plan.” He insisted softly. And Sephiroth did.

The next week, for their second review, Cloud carried in his carefully crafted pottery in a wicker basket. He unpacked it bit by bit. First the bowl he’d crafted in its carefully sterile white and red, then one by one the pills to fill it. He’d made each of them by hand, sculpted them in all different shapes; small and round, long ovals, clear resin capsules... He had made all sorts of color combinations and plans. On each one he’d painted their purpose in careful, perfect brushstrokes.

He placed the ‘Fault’ capsule top and center, next to ‘Humility,’ and ‘Control, Lack Of.’ Then he twisted his bowl to make sure its title would be facing outwards and stood back to wait.

Sephiroth entered not long after, unpacking his canvas. The whole room went still and breathless when they realized it was a canvas he was holding. When he set it on the easel, Zack looked between him and Cloud’s displays and laughed in utter delight.

Sephiroth’s canvas was a long row of flowers, going from a scrawled crayon drawing on the left to the most delicate and beautiful rose Cloud had ever seen in the center. But then it continued. The painting became ever more detailed, even as the flower itself withered and died, till there was nothing but a nearly photo-realistic brown stem at the far right side of the canvas.

Cloud smiled in shared pride and reached out to squeeze Sephiroth’s hand in silent support.

And when Scarlet walked in, Sephiroth stood proudly next to the piece he'd titled **(Artistic) “Growth”** , and Cloud stood behind his work, **Bitter Pills**. Together they watched her mouth work as she tried to decide between anger and amusement at seeing Sephiroth with flowers and Cloud with 'something different.’ As her expression tried to make up its mind, Cloud kept hold of Sephiroth’s hand.

“Let’s do this again.” He whispered to the man, smiling softly at his bowl of fake pills.

“Yes.” Sephiroth whispered in return, his eyes only for Cloud. “As often as you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Western AU


	17. Western

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New to town, cowboy-on-the-run Cloud Strife can already smell somethin' rotten in the town of Midgar. A standoff with the sheriff's right hand man Sephrioth in the streets proves it. But though Sephiroth and Cloud shoot at the same time, Cloud can't help but feel bad for the silver-haired man when no one comes to check on him, laying there bleeding in the dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my friends!
> 
> Today's chapter hasn't been edited yet, because my friends threw me a surprise cheese and wine party. Which was just as delightful as it sounds. But you know what they say! Don't edit drunk! So... In this case that means I haven't edited. Sorry! I hope you enjoy none the leass, and I will come back to fix this one up later!

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo)

* * *

Two months ago, Cloud rolled into town on Fenrir’s back, sick for water. Fenrir hadn’t been much better, poor old girl. She was still plodding along steady enough, her ears back and her head hanging low with exhaustion. Cloud had shared the last of his water and food with her, of course. He would never have started out if he’d had a choice. But getting strung up to dangle hadn’t seemed like the best alternative.

So they’d given it their best effort. Better to die in the desert than watch his horse shot while he was hung. Not like he’d done anything worth hanging. But he’d always been bad at holding his tongue, and it had caught up with him in time. Most things did.

So that was how he’d come to Midgar. His hat low on his head, only staying on his horse because she still wanted him there, both of them dryer than corpses and significantly tireder. That was how Fenrir had plunged her face into the first half-full water trough she saw, and Cloud had fallen off her trying to dismount. That was how he saw his new friends the first time. As they blocked out the sun leaning over him, frowning down at a dying stranger.

It would have been smart for them to rob him. Would have been reasonable for them to decide he wasn’t worth the trouble. Would have been understandable for them to call someone in to drag him off.

Instead he was picked up and carried inside, and he was too delirious at the time to remember much, but he remembered lukewarm water being poured through his dried-out lips, and the hushed talk of people wondering if it was enough.

“We shouldn’ be takin’ more folks in.” Grumbled a man’s rough voice.

“You’d prefer more corpses in the street? I think we’ve got enough of those.” A woman, her voice uncompromising.

“It’d be a shame,” a low voice this time, deep and smooth. “To lose a drinking companion before ever properly meeting.”

“He’ll be fine.” Another woman, a little softer but no less sure. “I can keep an eye on him till he recovers. Someone go tie his horse before she wanders away?”

“On it,” called another man. “Don’ let ‘im kick the bucket before I ask ‘im where he hails from. That horse’s a beaut!”

“Priorities.” A cultured voice muttered.

“He looks like a kid,” She sounded way more like a kid than Cloud ever had, he was sure. “Damn unlucky one if he’s washing up here.”

“You say that like the rest of us didn’t wash up here.” Chuckled the first woman’s voice.

Cloud squinted his eyes open, trying to see the folks trying to save him. His vision was blurred and sun-spotted. His head swam just at trying to focus.

“Hey,” Said the second woman, a brunette with what he thought was probably a warm smile. He couldn’t see well enough to be certain. “Welcome to Midgar, stranger.”

He knew them all now, of course. Could, in retrospect, match their voices and their actions to their faces. Barret, who’d been first to doubt him, Tifa, who’d been first to defend him, Aerith who’d been the one to save him. Nanaki, already curious about the stranger’s story, Cid already quietly wondering if he might be interested in breeding Fenrir to one of his stallions and making the ‘purdiest’ little horses in the west. (She’s not interested, Cloud would answer for her mildly, as often as it took.) Old One-Word Vincent, and Yuffie the ever-judgemental, content to watch their damn fool friends take in another stray.

After all, they’d all been strays at some point.

It didn’t take a full two months for Cloud to adore every one of them. Hells, it barely took a damn week.

They called each other ‘The Regulars.’ On account of they were the ones drinking most nights. Though for the moment, three of them were dry. They still showed up every night like clockwork, keeping Tifa’s little saloon full to bursting. All of this introduction he had heard in a dreamlike daze over a bowl of stew that he’d woken out of an exhausted sleep smelling. The whole lot of them had laughed at his stomach’s complaints, but they had been laughing while serving him some up.

“My horse,” he’d whispered.

“Already fed her,” Tifa said with a shrug. “Cid runs a stable in town, so he set her up nice out front till we could get you awake to figure if you were stayin’ the night or not.”

He learned a lot that first night. He learned that Nanaki like to philosophise, and had read a great many books that no one else in their group had. He learned that some members of their crew never shut up, but rarely said anything. He learned that the least talkative of them was not necessarily the least silly, as Vincent withheld his comments usually in favor of making a punchline following whatever wild tangent Yuffie had embarked upon.

He learned that he was in a town called Midgar, and that every one of them sneered when they talked about it.

He learned about Barret’s school, and his precious little daughter. About Cid’s stable and his beautiful prize horse Highwind. He learned that Aerith was the name of the doctor who’d saved him, and that she had indulged perhaps just a LITTLE too much that evening. She had jerked her head off the table where she was dozing and cried a hearty hello to him, waving her mug.

He learned that Tifa had a room upstairs, if he didn’t have a place to go, because he seemed pretty pathetic and she was soft hearted. She told him this herself, smirking, her eyes narrowed in amusement at his plight. He’d swept his hat off and bowed to her as stately as he could, and thanked her for her pity taken on a poor wandering waif.

Then he’d grinned in pride as they guffawed at his performance.

So Fenrir moved in with Cid, though Cloud made sure he was well aware that she was HIS horse, and not to be bred with unless she jumped the fence to get at Highwind herself.

And Cloud moved in with Tifa, dropping into a cot upstairs above her bar and covering his face with his hat to catch a few hours of exhausted sleep. It should probably have only been for the night. But of course, the next day he wanted to repay their kindness by doing some work for them. And by the time he was done, it was evening again, and they insisted on feeding him and housing him and his horse another night, and that he stay for a round of drinks, and a round of cards, and a round of singing. And he watched Cid drink tea and grumble over his cards, and Vincent pound shots like a farm hand himself, hovering in the shadows, and let Nanaki catch him and ask his views on the toll the gold trade took on the hills.

It took time for him to figure out why they sneered at Midgar’s name. Days of ‘Eh, he’s only here a little while, don’t get him mixed up in it,’ or ‘Y’know we come here to get AWAY from all that talk, right?’

But bit by bit he worked it out of them. In the end he heard the whole thing late at night, at the table with just him, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa. The doc told him about it in a low voice. She was the only one of them born and raised there, and the others insisted she was the only reason the town survived.

It was a familiar story, in the end. That might have been the most disappointing part. That these people who’d been kinder to him than any he’d met in all his long days were just as damaged by greed as anyone else. That these good folks could lower their voices like they were dealing with the devil and tell Cloud about their Sheriff. Their Sheriff and his taxes to protect them, and his killer silver-haired deputy. About their choking grip on the town, and the bands of iron they cinched tighter every year around everyone living in it.

Cloud listened carefully, then turned and spat his disgust. Tifa had laughed, bright and sunny and relaxed. Then she’d made him clean her floor, and the tension of the conversation had been lost once more. But Cloud filed the knowledge away. He’d help if he could, he knew that much. It rubbed him awfully wrong that good folk would be scrimpin’ to get by in a town that should’ve been prosperin’ for all the gold buried in its hills, and all the nearby grass that allowed for the herdin’ of animals too often unable to survive a desert.

One day became five. Then one week became two. Before Cloud knew it, what with one thing after the other, he had been there two months. And it was about then that he realized some little piece of him, somewhere between riding Fenrir to help Vincent round up his herd and prying her teeth out of Cid’s jacket pocket when she realized he was hiding sugar cubes from her, had started thinking of it as home.

It had come with a feeling of sinking dread. He’d learned a long time ago that homes weren’t safe.

Midgar was no exception.

* * *

“Nanaki’s been talking about ‘the cart’ for half an hour.” Cloud whispered to Tifa across the bar, slurring more than a little. “I don’ know how ta tell him I don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.”

“You better ask Barret to lend you some of his books,” Tifa snickered, grinning. “Or, if ya need to, you can pawn ‘em off on each other. They’ll talk philosophy for hours. It’s interestin’ stuff though, if you can get through the names.”

“Tifa.” Cloud said, frowning. “I don’t even know who The Cart is.”

“S’ French.” Tifa said, giving him a pointed look.

She couldn’t go further before someone was knocking. Yuffie paused her work at the piano’s keys, giving them a good old hammering with Cid plucking his guitar in accompaniment. In fact, all of the regulars went still.

People didn’t just go around knocking on saloon doors.

Cloud pulled his gun from the holster at his hip, keeping his muzzle pointed towards the floor, but ready to use it at a second’s notice.

“Good lords you really are jumpy.” Aerith murmured, sidling up to him as Tifa went to the door. “Put that thing away before I end up having to cut a bullet out of someone.”

“It’s nothin’ good.” Cloud said grimly.

“Probably better than a shoot out,” Aerith insisted. Cloud slid his gun back into its holster for her, but he kept his hand on it.

The man filling the doorway was definitely do good news. His black and silver suit fit him like a glove, and he towered over Tifa, his black hat pulled low over his eyes, even his hair matching the silver of his bolo tie. A green jewel gleamed from the center of it. Cloud recognized him instantly as the Deputy he’d heard them mutter about. The Sheriff’s muscle. A scourge on the Regulars.

“Miss Lockhart.” He said, his voice low and flat. Cloud tensed at his tone. He was dangerous alright. He’d heard that tone before on two kinds of people. Those walking into the gallows, and those working them.

“Sephiroth.” Said Tifa, crossing her arms in the doorway. “Can this low-life be of assistance?”

“From the sheriff.” Sephiroth said, handing her a folded piece of paper.

He stood still, waiting, while Tifa read it. The whole place held its breath. Cloud glanced down at his hand, finding his gun still clipped in its holster and his hand hooked in the belt above it. He responded in kind, crossing his arms to lessen the threat against the man. Sephiroth’s eyes traced over to him in an instant, but he didn’t speak, so Cloud didn’t either. Only stared back.

“This,” Tifa said, slowly and coldly. “Would put me out of business.”

“So would not paying taxes.” Sephiroth informed her. “Though more quickly. The rest of you have letters at your places of business. You have all officially heard the new tax law, and I will not accept excuses of you not havin’ heard.”

He tipped his hat, as if anything about his visit had been polite. He paused before walking away, glancing back to Tifa as she stood shaking with fury in her doorway, the letter crumpled in her hand.

“Perhaps you should consider having your new boarder pay you what you owe.” He said flatly, his eyes cutting to Cloud before he turned to leave.

The room erupted the moment he was gone. Cid was cursing and kicking things while Nanaki tried to settle him down enough to keep him from breaking any of Tifa’s chairs. Yuffie was scowling in utter fury, glaring at the floor with an unusual silence, her nose wrinkled in disgust. Vincent was pacing back and forth, the cape he wore over his dust-stained clothes whipping around him as he moved. Barret walked over to Tifa, holding out his hand. She passed over the paper without a word, still standing in front of the door. In its absence Cloud watched her clench her fists tighter. Tried not to notice the set misery of her jaw or the tears in her eyes.

Watching Barret–the firm-handed ever-energized school teacher–lower his head in quiet shock made Cloud’s heart ache. And it made him utterly certain that Sephiroth was right about one thing.

He owed these people. This town. That night he went to brush Fenrir down, and while he was there he wrote out a quick will. Left all he had to the Regulars. Fenrir was by far his most prized possession, but he left her to Cid. He’d take care of her, and if she ever decided to make a run at Highwind the selling of their foals was to be split with the others.

He tucked the will in with her tack outside the stall Cid had set her up in, and hugged her nose to his chest gently. Her ears pinned back, but not out of aggression. She nibbled at his shirt and nosed him, rocking him back on his heels as she worried.

Cloud rubbed her jaw slowly, sliding his hand over her familiar black coat as he tried to breathe through his fear.

He was waiting in the street at dawn, when the man in black came walking back down the dusty road towards Tifa’s saloon.

* * *

Sephiroth didn’t remember a time outside Midgar. His earliest memories were standing at his father’s side in the dusty street, watching a hundred strangers move about. His earliest lesson had come from his father’s low voice.

“Every one of these people would tear you apart if they thought they could sell your skin.” He had told Sephiroth.

“They will smile at one another, and they will laugh and play, but they are all of them waiting to destroy each other for a leg up. You understand? All that keeps them from the vicious ways of wildlife is the law. It will be your place to keep them in line. To keep them safe. In time you’ll see them as the livestock they are. Just never forget that those sheep would turn into wolves at a second if you showed them your throat.”

Everything Sephiroth had seen since said his father was right. Everything from the fighting rabble-rousers in the street to the sounds of gunfire on at night to the day he came home to find his father dead on the floor and everything he owned destroyed.

Every one of the people in the city would tear him apart if they saw his throat. So Sephiroth kept his throat covered, and he set to keeping them in line with all the brutal efficiency he had learned they needed.

He took no joy in it. Took less in seeing their tears, their fear. He didn’t want this. But it was necessary.

When he walked towards the saloon he had visited briefly the night before, he withheld a sigh at the sight of the stranger standing in the street. His gun was at his hip and his hat pulled low on his head, unruly blonde hair poking out from beneath it in wild spikes. Sephiroth watched his hands, dangling loose at his sides. Watched them shaking.

He stopped a few paces away, his own gun already in hand. He lifted it slowly, using the muzzle to push the brim of his hat up, eyes on the stranger, waiting.

“Stranger.” He greeted.

“Cloud.” Said the man, giving a half bow without removing his eyes from Sephiroth and his naked gun. “Pardon my lack of introduction previously.”

“Sephiroth.” He replied in introduction, tilting his head, waiting to see what was to be laid on the table.

“I can’t let you do this to them.” Cloud said. “You’re right. I’ve got ta pay what I owe.”

“I’ll give you one chance to get out of my way.” Sephiroth said, calm and low. He had a schedule to keep, but he’d avoid killing the stranger if he could. The way his hands were shaking said he didn’t do much shooting.

“These folk’sve been good to me.” Cloud said “I can’t stand by and watch ‘em get bled dry by men already livin’ in mansions. This right here?” He toed a line in the sand, and Sephiroth kept his eyes on his face as he did it, did not look down. Was no idiot. But Cloud didn’t even twitch for his gun. “This should be YOUR place. Between the people of this town and the folks what’d want to hurt ‘em. Between those fat cats in their mansions and the pennies in their pockets.”

Sephiroth watched him. Watched the earnest passion in his voice and crossing his expressions. Not a duplicitous bone in him, he thought, which was dangerous. But still…

“Nothin’s ever so easy as you’d like to think. Ride on, Cowboy,” He warned once more, because he wasn’t a man to go back on a threat, but he would extend it. For a little while. “Don’t die for this.”

But Cloud didn’t move. Even though he was quivering in his boots, he stayed rooted in place, his eyes fixed forward and a steadfast determination in his eyes. He left no choice in the matter. It was shoot or surrender.

And Sephiroth never showed his throat.

He lifted his gun, watching Cloud scramble to draw his in return. Not a fair duel, but it didn’t matter. He’d won every fair duel as well. Only Cloud was quick. Quicker than Sephiroth had given him credit for. Sephiroth fired first, but Cloud…

Cloud did fire.

Sephiroth watched the blonde fall. Watched his brown hat tumble. Watched him crumple in the dirt, curled around his side and clenching out a scream through his teeth. His blood was already staining the road. Sephiroth had meant to kill him in one shot. He’d missed…

The door to the saloon slammed open, and Tifa Lockhart raced out, abandoning her own gun to fling herself down at Cloud’s side. She was yelling something, her expression desperate, her hands prying at Cloud’s as she tried to get to the wound on his side. He would die, Sephiroth thought with no small amount of sadness. Even sheriff Shinra’s own doctors couldn’t have saved him from a shot like that.

The town’s doctor came sprinting out nonetheless, garbed in her dressing gown it was so early but not seeming in the slightest ashamed. She even ripped the robe off her shoulders to press against the injury, to staunch the bleeding. Sephiroth felt sick.

Then he felt something worse than sick. Something sharp and pulling and…

Sephiroth looked down at his dark jacket. Saw the vaguest of stains. Saw red dripping onto the dust from the bottom of his coat. He lifted his free hand to his side, and pulled it away coated in red.

Ah, he thought. Not so inept a shot after all. He stared down at the growing red as the pain caught up to him, slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat. As the rushing in his ears grew worse. He stood on the street, watching as the people of his city crowded around the fallen stranger, on their knees, holding his hands, touching his face and hair as he struggled to breathe. Watched his lips move without hearing anything. Saw their furious eyes turn to him.

He didn’t have the strength to spare to make it back to the sheriff’s office. Even if he had, he doubted much could be done. The bullet had entered just under his ribs. He was a dead man standing.

Not for much longer though. His legs gave out under him, sending him crashing to his knees in the street. He dropped his gun from numb fingers, and cursed himself for the lapse.

They will tear you apart, his father’s voice echoed inside his head as he collapsed in the dirt.

He felt hands on him. Gripping. Turning. Felt them press against the wound in his side, making him writhe in pain.

They will tear you apart.

It was not a peaceful rest he fell into. Every moment was agony. He felt himself moved, but at a great distance. Struggled to wake up. To fight back. He couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. His whole body ached like it was on fire. He heard voices, but as if through water.

“You first.”

“Fine. But please, he’s hurt, I don’t—”

He lost it again in the rushing pound of his heartbeat in his ears. Wasn’t aware of anything till liquid was poured between his lips. He swallowed automatically rather than choke, and coughed at the burn of it. The coughing was agony. His side felt like it had been ripped to pieces, gored by wild boars. He struggled to regain himself. To fight the hands holding him. To at least die with dignity. But there was more liquid in his mouth, and he was swallowing again, and he recognized the taste, abruptly, past the flavor of blood.

Bourbon, he thought in distant, bewildered panic, was a hell of a murder weapon.

It was the last coherent thought he had for a long time. All he remembered was pain. But even that was at a distance. Just pain and the occasional burning of brandy. And then long, blissfully still darkness.

* * *

“You’ll make yourself worse sitting up at his side.” Aerith scolded, her expression hard. “He’s not worth this care, Cloud. He shot you.”

“I shot him too, to be fair.” Cloud pointed out. “And, I mean, points to me. It sure as hell delayed that new tax law enforcement. How many days has it been?”

“Three. And Cloud? Absolutely not worth it. I thought…”

“I know, Aerith. I am right sorry. I’ve never been good at standin’ by.”

“Cid found that sorry will you wrote, you know.” She told him, her arms crossed and her expression not a mite softer. “If you think we’d ‘a been grateful you’re dead wrong. Never would have forgiven you for dyin’. Not one of us.”

“I know, Aerith.” Cloud repeated, the words coming out in more of a wheeze as he shifted to get in a slightly more comfortable position in the chair. “I wasn’ really plannin’ on dyin’. I thought he might listen to reason. I gave a good speech, y’know.”

“Is reason what you named your gun?” Aerith asked suspiciously. “Because I may have to kick you out if so.”

“It wasn’t before.” Cloud said, forcing a weary grin. “Might be now, that’s a damn fine idea.”

“You’re a terror.” Aerith informed him. “Keep your vigil then. Call me if he rouses. I still can’t believe you made me save ‘im.”

Cloud flushed at the memory, lying bleeding on the street, grabbing Aerith’s arm with all the strength he had, begging her in a voice trembling in agony.

‘Please. I didn’ mean ta kill ‘im. Please, help ‘im…’

“Can’t say I regret it.” Cloud said quietly. “He seemed… I dunno. He’s an odd one. But hell, maybe we can work this out now that you’ve got all the guns, doc.”

The smile Aerith shot him was a little truer, and Cloud relaxed a mite to see it.

She left them then, Sephiroth silent and pale as death, breathing slow and steady. His torso was wrapped in clean white bandages, splotched with red already from his side where Cloud had shot him. Aerith had cleaned the hell outta the wound, cut the bullets out of both of them, though at least Sephiroth had been unconscious for that. Cloud had just been drunk on Brandy and trying not to wake the whole town for screaming.

Cloud was certain they’d both have died in the hands of any other doctor. Another debt he owed these friends of his… That plus the brandy Tifa had provided to help the pain, that she had reluctantly shared with Sephiroth when Cloud couldn’t stand hearing the man’s unchecked agony any longer.

But it was over now, save for the healing part. And that was Cloud’s least favorite. It took ages, and led to nothing but annoyance. For the moment, he was content to keep an eye out for Sephiroth’s waking. Though perhaps not both eyes. And perhaps not fixedly so. In fact, he might have been ever so slightly weary…

He tilted his hat down over his eyes to grab a short rest, leaning back in his chair. His hat had been returned to him by Barret who had scooped it off the bloody street to return it. Sephiroth’s they had left next to his bloodstain on the ground, Barret had told him. And let the sheriff think of that what he would.

Apparently so far that hadn’t been anything at all, for all that he’d asked after Sephiroth. Cloud had asked the night before, and learned that the sheriff hadn’t so much as asked if he was alive. Had only put a hold on his tax increase until he could work a new schedule for collection. By new schedule, Cloud felt certain he meant ‘new hired muscle.’

He didn’t let himself fall asleep, exactly. He’d been doing plenty of sleeping. But he grabbed a little doze in the chair. Not quite enough to risk falling out of it and cracking his head open right after Aerith had finished stitching him together, but enough to take the edge off the exhaustion eating away at him.

* * *

Sephiroth woke up warm. Not comfortable, but not in agony anymore. The sun was shining through the windows, and he was tucked in a bed with blankets that were sturdy enough, if not soft. He blinked hard around the sleep in his eyes and tried to piece the puzzle together. He looked to his left and instantly froze.

There was the shakey little cowboy who’d shot him. Sitting there in a chair at his bedside, dozing, with his hat low over his eyes and a soft, relaxed look to his face. Even though he was bandaged up, with his shirt hanging open around his torso, he’d tied his bandana back on around his neck. He looked…

Sephiroth swallowed hard, trying to lever himself up into a sitting position. The motion only wrung a grunt from him and startled Cloud awake. His leg fell off from where he’d propped it against Sephiroth’s bed and he sat forward, blinking awake in confused alarm. WHen he spotted Sephiroth awake, his expression didn’t harden or scowl like Sephiroth had expected. He just smiled, warmly, brightly, like he was relieved.

“Mornin’.” Cloud greeted him, smiling. “How’s yer side?”

“What?” Sephiroth rasped, looking down at himself. At the bandages wrapped around him. Everything came back in fragments. An unfair duel in the street, ending in a draw despite all the points in his favor. He tensed, eyes cutting to Cloud, but the man didn’t seem angry, despite the bandages wrapped snugly around his body.

“Y’know.” Cloud gestured. “Where I shot ya. Sorry about that, by th’ way. Honestly thought we could work it out without firin’. But, ta be fair, pretty sure you shot first, so don’t be too mad about th’ matchin’ hole I gave you, alright?”

“Why am I alive?” Sephiroth rasped, staring at the man. “What do you want?”

Cloud hesitated, staring at him. He frowned, then shook his head quietly.

“Nothin’ I didn’ want before.” He said. “My friends safe an’ protected. I don’ think killin’ you would’a helped that any. Ya seem…”

He fidgeted, lifting a hand to tilt his hat anxiously before pulling it off altogether to worry at the edges.

“Not ta be presumptuous, but ya seemed awful unhappy ta be as bad as everyone said you were. I really didn’ intend to do ya any harm. Lucky us, Aerith’s got that healer’s touch. She put ya back together alright, though it might take ya a few days ta get back on yer feet.”

Sephiroth was staring at him as he spoke. Staring at his fingers, fidgeting with his hat, earnest and uncomfortable. Staring at the strained, worried look on his face. As if he was genuinely concerned that Sephiroth would hold a grudge after a mutual shooting.

“You…” He started slowly. “Your friend. The doctor. She healed me?”

“Well, I mean, got it started. I think ya’ve got a ways to go.”

“Aren’t you angry?” Sephiroth asked. “I tried to kill you.”

“Angry? Nah, I asked her to. I’m grateful. Speakin’ of, she said to call her. AERITH! HE’S UP!”

The bellow sent the cowboy into a fit of coughing that left him wheezing in pain.

Without fully understanding the impulse, Sephiroth reached over and clumsily patted the back of his shoulder.

Aerith returned with the smell of rubbing alcohol and herbal teas. She bullied Cloud back into a cot across the room with fist veiled then blatant threats and cajoling. He ended up sucking on a caramel looking as pleased as if it had been his idea.

It wasn’t until Cloud was asleep that she spoke softly to Sephiroth.

“Make no mistake,” She whispered. “If it weren’t for him, I’d have left you ta die in the street, and my oath be damned. Though I might have regretted it by this point. Ask me how many of your people have come to check in on you.”

Sephiroth said nothing. He knew.

“And yet our Cloud’s been hoverin’ around anxious a caged lark hopin’ you live.” Aerith whispered harshly. “I’d do some long an’ hard thinkin’ about where you’re going ta stand when you’re back on your feet, Sephiroth. And be sure ta thank ‘im. He might’a shot you, but he sure as hell saved yer life too.”

* * *

When Cloud woke up again at last, it was to ind Sephiroth gone and Aerith and Tifa speaking in hushed tones about it. Cloud took one look at the room, the bloodstains on the floor and the window sill, and pushed himself up.

“Where’d he go?” He asked coldly, shrugging into his shirt and pulling on his bandana.

“Get back in bed.” Aerith scolded harshly.

“Where’d he go?” Cloud repeated stubbornly.

“Probably back to Shinra.” Tifa spat. “Like the salivating attack dog he is.”

“Right,” Cloud muttered, and stood up from bed.

“Don’t you dare.” Aerith said.

“I ain’t loosin’ what little footing we had.” Cloud said firmly. “I’mma ride after him. You said Fenrir was still campin’ outside?”

“Caught whiff of yer blood the day you were shot and ain’t stopped tryin’ to break inta my place since.”

“I’ll ride ‘er after him. See if I can catch up.”

“You already got shot on our account once.” Tifa said sharply. “We already decided, Cloud. It ain’t happenin’ again. We’re already gearin’ up to chase those sons of bitches outta town.

“Well then,” Cloud said after a moment. “Least you can do is let me try ta save Aerith’s good stitchin’ work by keepin’ Sephiroth outta the crossfire.”

“What’s with you an him?” Aerith asked, her eyes suspicious.

“Just somethin’ about him.” Cloud muttered, shuffling his feet. “He reminds me a’ me before I came here. Bitter an’ lonesome an’ selfish. I figure I caught a lucky break with some good folks lookin’ ta help me. I’d like ta do th’ same for him, iffn’ he’ll let me. And I won’t know either way if he dies.”

He escaped while they were torn between affection and annoyance over his proclamation. Fenrir was right outside, like Aerith had said. No need to hitch her to the post with Cloud’s blood in the air, it seemed.

The moment she saw him she all but threw herself at him, and Cloud had to tangle his hands in her mane to keep himself upright as she wickered and nuzzled and rubbed her head against him. He winced as she jostled him, but withstood it for her.

“Easy now girl,” He whispered, leading her carefully to the porch, using it to carefully swing on. It was nostalgic, sitting half-dead on his horse’s back. He steered her with a gentle press of his heel against her side, his hands tangling deeper in her hair to stay upright as she walked down the street with a slow, deliberately careful gait.

It was easy to find the sheriff’s office. For two reasons. One, the splashes of red blood on the ground led right there. Two, it was the nicest building in town. Your tax dollars at work, Cloud thought bitterly, and slid inelegantly off his horse’s back.

“Get,” He whispered, rubbing her forelock before gently slapping her hindquarters. “Go on.”

She didn’t, but he wasn’t surprised. It had been worth the try.

He sidled up towards the window, tryin’ to focus on listening in and not on his horse dogging his footsteps like an extra shadow, nibbling at the back of his shirt. He could hear raised voices inside.

“First you vanish on me for days, now you come back looking trampled half to death and say you’re done? What in the hells happened in your head, boy?”

The yelling voice was unfamiliar, but Cloud grimaced at the accent. Old money at its finest, he was certain. He risked peeking inside, and found Sephiroth standing in front of the sheriff’s desk. The little silver deputy star he’d worn was on the counter between them. Cloud noticed Sephiroth swaying by the movement of his long hair. Idiot, Cloud thought, refusing to see his own hypocrisy. There were a couple other lawmen in the room, eyes suspicious and fixated on Sephiroth.

“Those folks saved my life.” Sephiroth was saying, his voice low and quiet. “I’dda… I’d have died on the street without them. I won’t play the taxman against them anymore. I can’t. I owe them.”

The Sheriffs gun flew faster than Cloud could have prepared for. Sephiroth too, it seemed. He backhanded Sephiroth across cheek with its grip, dropping Sephiroth hard to the ground, crashing into the chairs before his desk on his way down.

“You owe ME!” Shinra was yelling down at him, fury turning his face cherry red.

Cloud was moving before he was fully aware of it. He led his horse forward, past the window. Turned her so her hind legs faced the door. Then he took her head in his hands, kissed the tip of her nose, and told her

“Break it down, girl.”

Fenrir’s buck was legendary. There was no stable that could hold her. And apparently, no sheriff’s station either.

Dead silence followed the deafening clatter of Cloud’s mare kicking the door down. He walked in past the drifting dust, ignoring the multitude of guns trained on him. If they were going to shoot, they would have already. He ignored the spluttering sherrif too, walking over to Sephiroth where the man was slumped on one elbow, shaking his head to try and clear it.

“Hey,” Cloud said, offering a hand down to him. “You alright?”

Sephiroth lifted strained, exhausted eyes, but he nodded once. He accepted the hand a moment later, letting Cloud help him to his feet, though really, Cloud thought, this had become the blind leading the blind. He pressed himself against Sephiroth’s side once he was upright, trying to help keep him that way.

“Who do you think you are?” The sheriff was growling, his eyes on his ruined door and the black mare sauntering away proudly.

“Me?” Cloud scoffed. “Who do you think YOU are? All guns pointed at a man who’s just tryin’ to retire. You lot’re supposed ta be the law in this town. You oughta be ashamed.”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth slurred, sounding significantly worse for wear. “Get goin’.”

“You gotta stop tryin’ ta tell me what to do.” Cloud drawled. “I ain’t leavin’ now any more than I did the last time ya tried to make me.”

He gripped the back of Sephiroth’s shirt. Felt Sephiroth grip his sleeve in return.

“Ya’ve got his badge,” Cloud told the sheriff sharply. “Now we’re headin’ out. An’ you an’ your men are gunna stand down an’ behave yerselves.

“Or.” Said Shinra, a furious note in his voice. “I’m gunna take down the intruder who sadly shot my deputy before I could stop him.”

“Oh son of a bitch.” Cloud muttered as Shinra lifted his gun.

A series of things happened at once. Sephiroth pushed in front of him, ready to take the bullet. Shinra forgot to take his safety off and cursed, fumbling. And the wall behind his head exploded in a vicious shatter of red brick that scraped across the side of his face.

They all went silent and still then. Every one of ‘em. Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

Tifa stood there with a shotgun braced against her shoulder, sighting down at Shinra. The two toughs in back started to lift their guns, but the wall gave another alarming burst of red brick shrapnel.

“That’s my pal Vincent with a rifle.” Tifa said mildly. “On the roof behind yer building is my pal Barret and his friendly little machine gun. You’ve already met me and Betsy here.” She patted the shotgun’s stock once. “And as we speak, Cid an’ Nanaki are bringin’ yer horses around. Our girl Yuffie’ll be escortin’ you to th’ edge of town and keepin her twins leftie and right trained on you th’ whole way.”

“Just what do you think this is,” Shinra hissed. “A joke?”

“Nah.” Said Tifa, grinning wildly. “More of a coup.”

Cloud managed to maneuver himself and Sephiroth out of the way, letting Tifa take charge. Sephiroth was doing his best to stay upright. To keep his eyes on what was happening. But the moment the sheriff and his last remaining guards had been escorted out with his hands up, Sephiroth swayed and staggered. Cloud wasn’t strong enough to keep him upright–not with the bullet hole in his side and the exhaustion of fear and stress that afternoon had brought. The best he could do was collapse with him to try and soften the landing. Unfortunately all he had to soften the landing was his own body, and he wheezed out an agonized laugh as Sephiroth landed on top of him.

“Ow,” Cloud chuckled, though he didn’t release his grip on Sephiroth’s shirt, holding onto him as if it might keep them both from falling apart.

Sephiroth was silent a moment, giving a single, massive shudder. Then he started laughing, low and unsteady and warm.

“Thank you.” He whispered. “That’s twice I owe you my life, I think.”

“And once without me havin’ put it in danger in the first place.” Cloud chuckled. “You gunna be alright?”

“If I can have another day or two?” Sephiroth requested softly. “To recover. Before your friends see me out of town.”

“What?” Cloud asked, blinking.

Sephiroth looked to him. There was a strained look on his face, and he was pale and covered in a cold sweat.

“I have done them wrong.” He admitted softly. “Though I thought it was just what needed doin’. I’ll get gone as soon as I can stay on my horse, but…”

“Oh,” Cloud whispered, feeling an abrupt pain in his gut at the thought of this man riding off hands up like the sheriff had. He glanced up to Tifa in the doorway, her shotgun over her shoulder. Aerith was hovering as well, watching with narrowed eyes. She glanced to Tifa and screwed up her face in a small frown.

“Hey,” Tifa said striding over to both of them after a moment. “How about for now we just celebrate what we’ve done. You two should be good to get sloshed. Less blood n’ ever to poison.”

“Oh.” Sephiroth looked a little startled. A little alarmed. It made him look younger. Cloud liked it. “I don’t really..: I couldn’t—”

“Come on,” Cloud said softly, trying and failing to get his feet under him. “There’s no rush. Even if we all decided it was better for you to leave, no one’s going to chase you out tonight.”

“No travel for at least a month!” Aerith added from the doorway.

Tifa gave them a small smile as she held her hands down to help them to their feet.

“Come drink some.” She instructed. “We’ll figure it all out as we go.”

Sephiroth spent that night upstairs at Tifa’s saloon in Cloud’s room. With Cloud. It was an exhausted tangle in a free bed more than anything. It was only supposed to be for one night.

Just like it had happened with Cloud, time passed without anyone really realizing it was sliding by. It didn’t take a month for Sephiroth to become one of the Regulars. Hells. It didn’t even take two weeks.

He didn’t even realize how thoroughly he’d forgotten his father’s voice telling him to guard his throat until the night Cloud kissed his neck, over his pulse, and fell asleep beside him. Sephiroth had never felt less afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Gods AU


	18. Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After it all-- Meteor, Shinra, the Weapons, their victories and failures, their lives (both long and short)-- the planet's champions are given new life and purpose as young gods in the planet's domain, helping to clean up the world in the wake of Jenova's terror.
> 
> So why the _hell_ , Cloud wonders, is _Sephiroth_ there with them?

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

The battlefield was much like every other. Scorched earth, salted with blood and tears. Ruination in the rubble of buildings and bodies. It was still fresh.

Cloud walked through it like a harvester, his hands spread, guiding the severed souls. He shone gold in the wreckage, and carried the call of peace. Of rest. Of silence after the destruction. He remembered what it was like to be a body in the rubble. He would always remember.

The new pantheon was built around that idea. That humans knew best the needs of humans. That those who had lived it could best preside over it. He’d been offered rest instead. They all had.

No one he knew had taken it. Not even the one he had so desperately wanted gone.

At least, he assumed Sephiroth had been offered rest as well. He hadn’t asked. He had only stared at the newly appointed god of War that first time he ran across him. He had looked resplendent in his black robes, with their living cracks of green. It was as if he were full of mako, shining beneath his shattered surface. Cloud had only stared, then turned his back and walked away into the world.

Sephiroth’s presence in the pantheon was softened by Zack and Aerith. Zack thrived as the god of Love, and Aerith was the representative of the planet herself, granting her blessings when she could. She was the mouthpiece of Minerva, and had given them all their tasks. Their duties. Their weights to carry.

Cloud had taken to Death, eventually. At first he had been devastated to think that was the legacy the planet had thought most important in him. But Zack had provided comfort. Solace.

“It will be what you make of it now.” He'd said softly. “Doesn’t have to be black robes and scary skulls. When I first got the love gig up here I thought I was supposed to be, like, you know, Cupid? But that’s not what it is at all now, Cloud." His eyes had glowed with joy and intensity as he spoke. "It’s everything. I’m the love of everything.”

So Cloud had made what he wanted of death. He had shaped his afterlife into something gentle and golden. A place to wait till they were ready. A place for them to recover till they could rejoin the planet. To watch for the ones they loved. To rest a while.

He pulled the souls from the ground as he moved through the ruined field. He was not bound by a single body, or even by a single existence. For each of the dead littering the ground he was there in person. For each of them he had a smile, and a hand up, and a quiet ‘rest now.’ Just like Zack had told him all those years ago, when he had finally, finally died.

Today the gentle words for the dead did not match the furious scowl Cloud's main form wore. This, he thought, walking through the wreckage, was Sephiroth’s doing. This war was his domain, and his power. The first of them that Cloud knew of since he became the god of war. Cloud wondered if it pleased him. All this pain. All this destruction. Sephiroth had always thrived on it. Even when he was alive.

He felt Sephiroth nearby. Had felt him since he arrived, standing on the edge of this battlefield he'd created. He was standing right by the only sparks of life Cloud could feel in the ruined war zone. Though from what he could tell those lives would not last long.

He’d done his very best to avoid Sephiroth. To keep clear of his destruction until the fields were empty for the reaping. To keep out of his way particularly now, when they were both immortal, and Cloud couldn't do anything permanent to stop him.

His only relief had been that Sephiroth seemed just as keen to stay away from him. But now there he was, lingering on the edge of the nightmare he'd created. Waiting next to a soul Cloud could feel dying.

'It will be okay,' Cloud's other aspects whispered to the souls he drew out of the blood-soaked dirt. He sent them skyward, streams of green, echoed by his golden shadows. He did not let those wounded souls see his fury. For them it was only his shining smile. Only his gauzy garb and gentle hands. He was their Death, and he would make certain it was as easy for them as it could be. He had seen enough death. Felt its sting more than once himself. The least he could do was ease that somehow for others.

He made sure every last soldier he could reach was gone before he climbed the hill towards Sephiroth. He didn't want their souls to see this.

The soul he had felt near Sephiroth's presence was trapped. She was still holding on past her limits. Cloud clenched his teeth when he saw her. Sephiroth was standing at her side, his eyes hard and terrible as he watched Cloud approach. The core of green glowed on his chest, swirling, shifting. Cloud didn’t let himself look. His eyes were for the woman on the ground.

She was half-crushed by a crumbled building. Face-down on the ground. In her arms was a softly sobbing child, trapped beneath her. The mother was holding on to life by a thread, and Cloud felt only sorrow for her. He stepped forward gently, his bare feet soft on the churned, broken ground. His golden scythe gleamed to life in his hands, ready to free her.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said.

“This is quite a trap you've laid for me.” Cloud said softly, watching her. “So cruel. Even for you. Using her suffering to draw me.”

“I see you still like to jump to conclusions.” Sephiroth said, shifting his stance. Cloud could see the acid burns on the ground from where his feet touched. He moved slowly, smoothly, standing between Cloud and the woman on the ground.

Cloud tightened his grip on his scythe.

“Move.” He said, anger curling in him like molten gold. “Go revel in your battlefield. She is one of mine now.”

“Not yet.” Sephiroth said, grim and harsh.

“You’d leave her there suffering?” Cloud asked, gesturing with his free hand. “No. I’ll set her free even if I have to go through you to do it.”

He wasn’t surprised when Sephiroth’s blade appeared in his hand. He didn’t flinch. He was long past fear of his once-nightmare. He was only angry now. Only vastly, unendingly angry. The wings at Sephiroth’s hips shifted and flared. Cloud’s own wings responded in a quiet rustle, and he quieted them with a force of will.

Some piece of him loved them, the strange little white wings that sprouted all around his waist like a strange skirt. Another piece liked to remind him how Sephiroth had looked before the end of his life, and wonder at how much their genes--their minds-- had entwined for Cloud to share that particular trait.

Sephiroth's dark blade oozed mako, as strange and unnatural as the green beneath Sephiroth’s armor.

“I’m not here to fight you.” Cloud said, flat and unimpressed. “Was the blood already spilled here today not enough to satisfy you?”

“Leave her and I will have no quarrel with you.” Sephiroth said, his voice low and strong. As beautiful as it had always been. Cloud despised it.

“You’d like to see the last victim of this brutality suffer?” Cloud guessed, lips turning down in a cold frown.

“I would see her live.” Sephiroth said, slowly swinging his sword to the side and falling into a silent, protective stance.

Cloud stared at him a long moment, then laughed. The sound escaped from him cruel and dark.

“She’s already fraying,” he said, extending his empty hand towards her, ready to send one of his images to lift her. A mercy. “With or without me, she will die.”

Sephiroth moved so fast Cloud couldn’t jolt away in time. There was a hand on his wrist, gripping his arm too tightly. Yanked it sharply away from pointing at the woman on the ground. Sephiroth pressed forward even closer, towering over him. Cloud whipped up his scythe, curving it around, blade towards Sephiroth’s back, ready to slice him in half, even as the man stabbed his own blade into the ground at Cloud's back.

“You would mock her?” Sephiroth snarled, his teeth bared, his eyes furious.

His hand was vicious around Cloud’s wrist. The mako in his chest boiled. Spilled over. Cloud grit his teeth against sudden pain as a drop splashed against his nearly bare leg, eating away at his gauzy robe and burning the flesh beneath it.

Cloud jerked at the pain of it, fury lighting in him. He pulled his scythe closer, his blade curving across Sephiroth’s back. He pressed it against Sephiroth's unguarded spine, not yet slicing him in half, but fully capable. Sephiroth had left himself wide open. The god of war's snarl did not falter in the slightest.

“Let. Go.” Cloud ordered, his hand tense in Sephiroth’s grip. He could feel the war god’s aura beating against his own. His fury, his anguish. The latter he ignored with a force of will, yanking against the grip on his wrist.

“I won’t let you have her.” Sephiroth hissed, bending closer to Cloud, trying to impose his will, as ever.

“It is not your choice to make.” Cloud snapped, tired of the game. He raked the tip of his scythe across Sephiroth’s back. Broke the grip on his wrist with a show of pure force that left the silver-haired god staggering in the golden light of Cloud’s power.

“I am Death." Cloud said, his voice as golden as his clothes. "I am freedom and endings. Go and play your war games, monster. Leave my innocents free from them.”

Sephiroth rolled his shoulders, straightening. Cloud watched the god’s blood fall where he'd sliced his back. He bled for only a moment; an arc of ruination that stained and scorched the ground. Nothing would grow there again, Cloud was certain. The look on Sephiroth’s face was unmistakable. It was the face of the man Cloud had struck down all those years ago, back when he still had hope of destroying all that Sephiroth was.

“Face me.” Sephiroth commanded, lifting his blade towards Cloud. “If you win, I will stand aside and never block your path again. If I win, you will leave her to try.”

“To try?” Cloud asked, brows furrowing in confusion. He glanced to the woman. She was barely breathing. Suffocating slowly. It was a terrible death. One that he would not be able to fully ease, no matter how gently he lifted her.

“I don’t have time for this.” He muttered.  
  
Cloud watched Sephiroth’s hand tense on his sword. Watched the man’s expression only set further, harder. Watched the rippling green of his magic curl around his feet. He hated to think what the swell of power in the god of war would do to the world at large. To the ground on which they stood. To the souls of the fallen woman and her child, so close to him.

“Fine.” Cloud said at last, because at least this way he could have an ending. At least this way there would be a victor, and no reason for the god of war to throw more lives away at having been cheated a battle. “If you are so hungry to fight me again, then let us fight.”

He sent a silent apology to the woman. For letting her be a bargaining chip between gods. He no longer feared Sephiroth for his own sake, but the mortal world still had much to fear from him.

The man nodded once, and Cloud blinked as he glanced back at the woman and child, as if checking on them. Then he turned and walked away from them, stalking across the dead land. Cloud followed, his steps light, the souls of little living things crawling free of the ground in flickers of green and gold as he passed.

Cloud straightened, his scythe held at the ready at his side. Sephiroth turned to face him, his Sword held at his side.

“I don’t want this.” Sephiroth said bleakly. “For what that’s worth. But you will not hear me.”

“You have nothing to say to me.” Cloud swept his scythe to the side. “Don’t stall. The longer you keep me here, the more she suffers.”

Sephiroth didn’t reply. Only lifted his blade to his shoulder and pressed forward in a dash so smooth it was nearly flying. Cloud slapped his thrust aside with his bare hand against the blade. The ring of the metal against his palm chimed like a bell in the silent, empty killing field. Cloud hissed at the feel of the poison mako on the sword's surface, weeping onto his skin. He swept his scythe in to follow--to capitalize on Sephiroth’s charge. But the man was already gone again.

Cloud whirled, his many wings tucked close. His robes and ornaments swirled steady in the wind around him. They were no realer than he was. No more physical than light. They did not slow him. He slid to the left, watching Sephiroth’s blade pass by him with a deep calm and certainty.

He had beaten Sephiroth again and again as a human, despite all odds.

He was no human now.

He spun the scythe, bringing it down with a crack against Sephiroth’s sword, driving his dark blade deep into the dirt. Cloud spun, carrying the momentum, spinning to slice the god’s head from his shoulders. Sephiroth dropped to his knees to dodge the hit, yanking his blade free and slashing it towards Cloud’s legs in a vicious strike.

Cloud rolled mostly free, though the blade cut open his thigh. Molten gold poured from the wound only for a moment, twining down his calf, sinking into the earth. Moss rose up hungry under his bloody foot, only to die as Sephiroth pressed forward, launching off the churned earth.

“You know,” Cloud said almost conversationally, his scythe moving easily, spinning through the air like a dream, slapping Sephiroth’s blade away again and again.

“This is easier than it used to be. Without you in my head, without fearing you. How frustrating it must be for you. Should I quip at _you_ to worship me this time? Shall I put you on your knees, Sephiroth?”

He dropped under another sharp stab that answered his words. The dirt and mud didn’t stick to his legs. He was shining. Radiant. This land of death was a place of power for him as much as it was for Sephiroth. Perhaps more, now that the fighting was over. When Cloud brought his hungry scythe around it cut deep into Sephiroth’s side. Stuck there till Sephrioth pulled away, tearing free from the blade rather than allowing Cloud to hook him.

The splatter of his blood was a weapon in and of itself. Cloud lifted a hand to shield his face from the acid of it, and only barely dodged the returning attack. Sephiroth’s brutal sword had come around to slice his face open. Cloud flinched back in time for it only to draw a fresh stream of golden blood from his face. The mark healed almost as soon as it was scored. But it burned. It burned awfully.

Still Sephiroth didn’t speak, only catching his stance and pressing his advantage. His movements were lightning in the dark. Green streaks through dark ground. He was cracks of metal on metal and the flash of furious eyes.

“Nothing to say to me?” Cloud asked sharply, feeling his teeth bare, feeling the wrath in his heart awaken. “Nothing but this?” He slapped Sephiroth's sword away again. It sliced his hand open. Burned with cloying acid. He didn’t care. “Why couldn’t you just _die_?”

He caught Sephiroth’s throat in his bloody hand. Squeezed as his blood burned the war-god’s flesh. Sephiroth screamed, short and agonized, his eyes narrowing in pain and his sharp teeth bared. His sword caught Cloud’s side, dragging flesh open in a terrible fountain of golden blood. Cloud let it. He knew what he wanted. What he had wanted.

He didn’t mind bleeding. He had always bled. Lichen sprouted up his bloody side as he threw Sephiroth upwards, launching him into the empty air. He followed Sephiroth's body with the vicious point of his scythe.

How many times had Sephiroth stabbed him that day, he wondered as he leapt into the air after him. On top of the ruins of Shinra, in a last-ditch effort to ruin them all. As many as he could, he guessed. As many as he’d been able before Cloud had plummeted back to the ground, bleeding, dying, failing.

Cloud would return the favor.

His scythe caught Sephiroth’s shoulder, the dagger tip slicing through his body like water. Cloud didn’t bother pulling back. Pushed through, slicing his flesh apart. Repeated the action on his thigh, his calf, his arm as Sephiroth tried to block. Carefully sliced the side of his face open to mirror the mark that had scarred him that day. Accepted the shower of his acid blood as his due.

Cloud caught himself in the air, golden in his glory, smoldering, as Sephiroth fell. Sephiroth hit the ground hard, crumpling into the ruined dirt as Cloud hovered, free of gravity's confines.  
  
And then Cloud felt a tug. Familiar. Impossible. Something outside of all realities but his own. And then the world was white.

“Hello little Vengeance.” Zack’s voice said, warm and soft in the bright place. His back was to Cloud’s, a mirror again of that day, when Cloud had been failing to rise.

“I'm Death, Zack. Not Vengeance. You know that.” Cloud said softly.

“You can change.” Zack replied, easy in a way that said he was carefully not commenting. “We all could. I would still love you if you wanted to change, Cloud.”

“He destroyed everything.” Cloud spat, feeling tears well in his eyes. Rage that had never been resolved. Sorrow he had never outlived.

Zack was silent a long moment, shifting his weight behind Cloud’s back. Then he spoke. “I still love him too, you know." He said softly. "He’s trying, Cloud. Did you know that? That he’s trying? To use what he is to do good?”

“Nothing good can come from war.”

“No?” Zack laughed. “What a brazen thing for the god of Death to say!”

Zack pulled away, and the world cleared. Left Cloud in the air, above Sephiroth in every way. Better than him. Stronger than him. Stronger, in fact, than he’d ever been. He watched as Sephiroth struggled to rise. Watched him pour acid blood onto the ground, deepening the wound in the earth.

Impale him, some part of him called. Lift him on your blade as he did you. Leave him twisting on it here so he never forgets. Ruin him.

Cloud stared down at Sephiroth. Watched him fighting to get to his feet. Watched him stab his sword deep into the earth, trying to lever himself upright.

No, he told that part of himself.

Cloud turned away from Sephiroth and his hatred both. Back to the woman fighting for every breath. I was never here to torture him, he reminded himself. Only to move him.

He drifted to the earth, his steps less even after the strength he’d expended. The still-dripping golden blood on his leg trailed an uneven path of moss where his left foot stepped. It marked his path through the ruined field towards the woman in the rubble. His scythe hummed in his hand, wet with the god of war’s blood.

He lifted it over the suffering woman, silently promising her mercy at last. When he struck, his blade impacted Sephiroth’s side rather than severing the woman's soul. The man grimaced, pushing forward against Cloud, shoving him back, guarding her from all but the slightest splashes of his acid blood. Cloud could only stare at the green streaming from Sephiroth's mouth. The agony in his eyes. The way his body shuddered.

None of it said monster. He looked down at himself, shining and golden and all but untouched in comparison.

He pulled his scythe free, watching as Sephiroth dropped to his knees helplessly. Watching the acid of his blood eat into the ground. Watching him fight for his feet and fail. Cloud glanced down into the field he'd left behind and saw Sephiroth’s sword there, lying abandoned. He must have dropped the blade to make it in time to stop Cloud's swing.

Cloud thought of a time long long ago when the name 'Sephiroth' had been synonymous with 'hero.' He banished his golden scythe silently and crouched slowly before the war god bleeding on the ground.

“You are beaten.” Cloud said, pitching his voice soft and gentle. The voice he used for dying souls. Not enemies. “I am not so easy an opponent as I was, Sephiroth. Death is a very powerful mantel to wear.”

Sephiroth clenched his eyes shut. Cloud watched him breathe there. Waited, sensing the man would argue. Would try to back out on the deal. He was not prepared for what he did hear.

“Please.” Sephiroth whispered, bleeding his defeat onto the ground.

“She deserves to rest.” Cloud said. “I am not cruel, Sephiroth. I take no joy in her death. It is the only peace I can give her.”

“And her daughter?” Sephiroth asked, his brows furrowed, his eyes on the ground. On the poisonous green blood pooling beneath him.

Cloud was silent.

“You know as well as I do you may as well stay to collect the child as well.” Sephiroth laughed raggedly. “She will smother where she lies, trapped beneath her own mother’s body.”

“Someone may yet come in time for her.” Cloud said, folding his hands in his lap, watching Sephiroth with confusion. What game was this? This show of sorrow, of compassion…

“Live for what?” Sephiroth choked with a laugh. Cloud watched his hand tighten in the churned mud, leaving furrows in the ground. “Even if she were to live, she will remember this. Will remember her mother’s broken promise, and the way her body cooled and tightened when her breathing stopped.”

“I cannot weigh her suffering against her mother’s. I cannot simply abandon my duty when it saddens me.”

“I used to say the same thing.” Sephiroth whispered.

Cloud clenched his jaw. Dragged in a slow breath. Sephiroth’s blood had spread, staining the edges of his soft golden clothes. Cloud knew in some deep piece of himself that the traces of green would remain. A stain on his soul as well as his clothing. A wound he had inflicted. A truth.

“She promised.” Sephiroth said, and Cloud saw it in him then at last. Saw that thing he hadn’t wanted to see. That he’d been running from for so long.

A god he might have been. Immortal, unkillable, presider over war. But in that moment, Cloud saw Sephiroth as a human. A man who had tried. Who had failed.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud said softly, holding out his hand. “Show me.”

Sephiroth’s eyes snapped up to him. Then down to Cloud’s hand.

“I’ll burn you.” He said, a trace of bitterness in his voice.

“I’ve burned before.” Cloud said, holding his hand steady.

There was a moment of utter silence, save for the wheezing breaths of the human and the muffled sobs of her child.

Sephiroth took his hand.

_It was dark. The smoke was too thick for light to shine through. Sephiroth was standing at the edge of the town. At the first of the houses. Watching the war wage. Cloud could feel his intention. His desire. To hold those battling in their field. To keep the bystanders out of harm’s reach. To keep war within war, and as far from homes, from hearts, as he could. To spare the innocent the suffering he’d seen in Wutai._

_But his providence did not cover mistakes. Nor was he truly in control of the people he influenced. It was impossible to tell whether it was a mistake or an act of cruelty, the short-range missile that blasted the edge of the town. All that mattered was that it did. All that mattered was the screaming child in the rubble. The mother curled around her, holding her to her chest, speaking through her own agony._

_“It’ll be okay, baby, it’ll be okay, I promise, I promise.”_

_Cloud would have been satisfied with that alone. But there was more there. He could feel it. He followed that sense of unending sorrow-- of bleak regret-- and found its core. Found a man smiling, his face blurred with age and fallible human memory. Saw the woman at his side, beautiful and familiar. Aerith’s parents, Cloud thought, recognizing their faces from the video in Icicle in all those years ago. Ifalna and professor Gast._

_“You are so brave to help us,” Gast said, his voice so distant, so long ago now. Buried under so many years of pain. “I promise it won’t be forever, Sephiroth. We'll come back for you.”_

Sephiroth withdrew his burning touch. He was slumped on the ground, curled around his wounds, holding his position between Death and a mother who was fighting for her child.

“Do you know what happened to him?” Cloud asked after a long moment of silence. "To Gast?"

“Yes.” Sephiroth said with a small smile. “He did not come back. He was right not to. The moment they found him they killed him. He would only have died faster if he had tried to take me.”

“But he promised you.” Cloud said softly, his eyes burning not from acid at all. “How many broken promises were there before you found Jenova?”

“More than one.” Sephiroth said.

Cloud nodded slowly.

“You took it out on everyone. It wasn’t the world's fault."

“I know.” Sephiroth said. “Do you think Zack and Aerith would suffer me to be here if I still thought I had done right by the world and her people?”

“You want this woman to live so badly?” Cloud asked rather than commenting on that. He didn't like hearing their names from Sephiroth but... He was trying. “This woman may end up being one of the bad ones. One of the cruel ones. She may hurt people. She may never be happy again after this day. It may be kinder to both of them to die here.”

“She told her child it would be alright.” Sephiroth argued, his eyes closed in exhaustion. His silver hair spilled in the dirt and blood. Cloud watched the shining lines of it coiling in the acid. “She curled over her child and guarded her with all she had when the missile struck. She broke her own body by choice so that her daughter might live. It is not for me to decide whether she is 'good' or not. I only want to give her the chance to _succeed_.”

“I can’t bend the rules every time it breaks my heart.” Cloud said. “I understand why that hurts you. And I understand that the same thought can be used for evil. But death is there for a reason. It cannot be escaped forever. It should not be.”

He watched Sephiroth bow his head, collapsed between him and the ones he would protect.

“But,” Cloud said slowly. “I suppose… This once.”

He held out his hand, calling a shallow bowl, so small he held it only with his fingertips. He waited until Sephiroth lifted his eyes. Cloud raised his free hand, calling forth a small dagger, making sure Sephiroth watched as he pressed the blade to the corner of his own eye and let a single molten droplet of his gold blood fall into the shallow basin. Like a tear.

“Willingly offered. Not requested or taken.” Cloud informed the staring god, offering him the tiny bowl. “It would do nothing but kill her faster if you’d tried to take it by force. Before you get any ideas about next times.”

Sephiroth did not move, staring at that drop of gold.

“I will burn her if I touch her.” He said softly.

“Then she will have the mark of a god’s hand, and his gift of her life.” Cloud said firmly, extending it. “You’re the one who wills her to live. It must be you who gives it.”

He watched Sephiroth think. Watched his mistrust as he glanced up to Cloud’s face. Watched him struggle to sit upright. To gather himself enough to move. He used his left hand to take the small container. His fingers were shaking, but he did not touch Cloud with his acid-stained hand. Cloud only watched as he moved on his knees to the mother’s side. Watched him hesitate over her, trying to find a place to touch where he could give her Cloud’s blood and not agonize her.

Cloud took a slow breath, connecting to the other side with a slow blink. He saw the woman’s soul, separated from her dying body, kneeling beside it. She was only loosely tethered now. She paused her sobbing to look up in fear at the war god as Sephiroth knelt stiffly beside her.

“Do you want this?” Cloud asked, for her ears only. This world was for him and the dead alone. Not even another god could have reached him here. “He would give you life. I would give you peace. You may forever ache after this day. My blood may burn inside you always, along with his touch. Nothing will be the same for you.”

“My daughter.” The woman whispered. “Her father is gone. My parents, my brothers… She has no one but me. Please. Let me burn.”

Sephiroth could not see her. Cloud could have recanted the spell he’d placed on the blood. Could have taken her. Could have told Sephiroth she had chosen not to accept the gift. Instead he only watched as Sephiroth carefully moved the rubble aside. As he lifted her carefully with his hand on her shoulder, turning her only enough to place the shallow dish to her lips, letting Cloud’s blood slide into her mouth as her breaths faded.

Cloud watched his touch burn her. Watched her head loll against Sephiroth's boiling, bloody chest. Sephiroth flinched as it hurt her and backed away quickly. Removing himself from the two of them quickly, before he could do more harm. He shuddered there, unable to rise from his knees.

“That thing in your chest,” Cloud said softly, watching as the woman’s soul unravelled, dragged back into her body at the touch of his blood. “Is it your heart?”

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth said bleakly, sounding distracted. “The goddess does not speak to me like Zack says she does to the others. The woman... She will live?”

“Watch.” Cloud urged, moving over slowly, crouching by the fallen god.

They were watching when the mother sucked in a breath. Coughed, shuddered, spat dust and rubble. Watching as her daughter sobbed in relief and terror. Watched as the woman Sephiroth had saved wrapped her arms around her daughter, tears tracking down her rubble-stained face.

“It will hold her till help arrives,” Cloud said, “though she may find herself not quite human. It should not change her too much. And if she fails to die in her time, I will come to set her free.”

Sephiroth nodded, quietly, on his knees. Cloud watched him, then slowly gathered light in his palm. Sephiroth only watched the lives he had saved, but Cloud called their eyes with his light. Then he carefully took Sephiroth's hands, and placed his glowing light gently in his bloody palms, earning a surprised look.

“I think perhaps it suits you better.” Cloud said softly, watching the women and her child, caked in dust. Their eyes followed his light and fixed on Sephiroth. They stared at the other-worldly face of the one who had saved them. “To be the god of War and Survivors both. Let them remember you that way.”

When Sephiroth turned back to the pair of souls, it was to see the woman he had saved smiling at him, soft and awed and mesmerized. Sephiroth held her look till Cloud’s golden light faded to nothing.

Cloud stayed there with him till help had arrived. Till the woman was rescued, her daughter safely in her arms. Both alive

“Thank you.” Sephiroth whispered, watching the woman with the cracked burn-scars from his blood on her face and his hand print seared forever on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” Cloud replied. “For hurting you. I let myself get… Carried away. By darker times. Forgive me.”

“Your pound of flesh was well earned.” Sephiroth murmured.

“Come on.” Cloud said, holding a hand down to him. “Up. There is no more war or death here today. And I think Zack is worried about you.”

“Did he interrupt to speak to you too?” Sephiroth asked, cautiously taking his hand.

“Oh, he does that to you?” Cloud hauled Sephiroth to his feet, refusing to acknowledge the burn. “Here I thought it was our special thing.”

“He calls it a ‘love thing.’” Sephiroth said, his voice uncertain and low. Cloud found he didn't hate it. Hearing him talk like this. “You need not take me with you. I am content to wander till I am called. You have already endured me too much today I fear.”

Cloud considered, then let a small smile touch his lips.

“I think I'd like you to come with me.” He said. “I always did wish I had known you before Nibelheim. I suppose knowing you after would do.”

Sephiroth wavered where he stood, his body still knitting itself back together. Cloud watched as the bleeding of his green heart lessened, ever so slightly.

“I think,” Sephiroth said, standing in the ruin of his battlefield, looking out over the strange swaths of moss where Cloud’s blood had rained down and scorch marks where his own had poured. “That I would like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Childhood Friends


	19. Childhood Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The people of Nibelheim know to avoid the mansion. But Cloud can't help himself, after he realizes there's a boy only a few years older than him living there. But as fast as his friendship with Sephiroth grows, there was always going to be a world of distance between them. Can their connection weather the tests of time and war?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing the post yesterday, y'all! It was my birthday!
> 
> I want to give a special thanks to EVERYONE who has been commenting and leaving kudos. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to see your comments. And those of you who have been commenting on EVERY CHAPTER!? You're my heroes. For real. Putting these stories up here has been an amazing experience, and I'm so grateful to all of you for sticking with me and reading through them.
> 
> I think you're REALLY going to like today's <3

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

“Hello?”

The woods ought to have been empty. That was why Cloud sought them out. Why he choked back his tears there rather than at home. He was already six. He didn’t want to cry where his mother could see him. Or worse, where Tifa and the other kids could. The angry red slice down his forearm wasn’t even that bad, but he knew it would mean another lecture at home on being careful, another scolding for having scrambled somewhere he wasn’t supposed to go

He turned towards the soft voice slowly. The forest was empty around him, but he'd just passed the haunted mansion, and it was still so close behind him. He was going to get killed by a ghost, he thought with sudden certainty. The sight of someone on the other side of the fence almost convinced him of that fear.

Except that the someone else was a boy not that much older than him, hovering mostly behind the brick wall, only halfway peering through the rusted fence of the back gate. Cloud sniffled, wiping at his nose with his sleeve as he stared at the pale boy on the other side of the fence.

“Hello.” Cloud replied, shifting his weight from side to side. “Who’re you?”

The boy shook his head silently, peering through the fence.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” He said, though he didn’t sound mean and angry like the boys in town who shooed Cloud away from their yards and games. “Are you a Normal Person?”

“Um,” Cloud said, thinking over the question with a deeply furrowed brow, “maybe? I think so. Are you a ghost?”

“What?” The boy’s nose wrinkled with confusion, and a grin caught on his lips, showing off a missing canine tooth. “No!”

“Oh good.” Cloud breathed, walking over closer, tilting his head to see around the gate to the empty mansion. “Is this your house? Mom says no one lives here.”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it.” The boy didn't sound angry, though, so Cloud didn't mind. He knew a grown-up's rule when he heard it. “Why were you crying?”

“I wasn’t!”

“You were. That’s why I came over. I’m supposed to stay inside if there are people out here. But if you’re hurt I can help, I think. Mother says it’s important to help people when you can.”

“You call your mom ‘mother’?” Cloud asked.

“Yes?” The boy offered, looking more confused than anything. “So are you hurt?”

“S’ nothing.” Cloud muttered, though he showed off his arm with a touch of pride. A good injury, he’d found, often impressed the other boys in class at least a little bit. “See? Only looks all scary.”

“Looks like it hurts,” the boy commented, shifting out from behind the wall and glancing up to him. He reached through the bars, his hand palm-up in offer. “Can I see?”

“Um...” Cloud squirmed a moment. Then he nodded, holding his hand out to him. Letting him catch his wrist in a firm grip and look over the wound. The older boy pressed up against the bars to inspect his injury more closely.

“How old are you?” Cloud asked.

“So many questions.” The boy said with a frown. “But I’m nine. I’m… Older than you, right?”

“Only by a few years.” Cloud muttered, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand to try to get the last of the crusty salt off them.

“Does your mother fix your cuts when you're hurt?” The other boy asked rather than responding.

“Yeah, of course." Cloud said quickly. "But I know she’ll be sad. She doesn’t like it when I get hurt.”

“Mine neither.” The boy sighed. “Can I try to help?”

“You have disinfectant and sticky bandages?” Cloud asked.

The way the other boy wrinkled his nose in distaste told Cloud exactly what he thought of that.

“Better.” He proclaimed, and passed his other hand through the bars.

Cloud watched, mesmerized. The strange boy slid his hand over Cloud’s injured arm in a slow motion, starting at the top of his cut and scraping his palm over the cut. It should have hurt. It should have stung. It _did_ burn, but not like it should have.

Cloud might have objected or pulled away, but the skin where the boy's hand passed was knit back into place. Softer. Less damaged. Not perfect, but now the injury looked weeks old. Cloud gaped down as the boy on the other side of the fence let out an exhausted breath.

“How’s that?” The boy asked, sounding as winded as if he'd just been sprinting full-tilt.

“Wow.” Cloud whispered, pulling his hand back to poke at where the cut had been. “Wow! It doesn’t hurt at all now!”

“One day I’ll be as good as mother is,” the boy said with a firm certainty.

“Thank you,” Cloud said, stepping forward to catch the other boy’s hand before he could pull it back through the bars. “That’s amazing! Can you do other kinds of magic stuff?”

“I’m really not supposed to.” The other boy seemed suddenly sheepish. Or anxious. “Don’t… Tell anyone, okay? Please?”

“I won’t,” Cloud said, “promise. I’m Cloud!”

“I’m Sephiroth.” The other boy said, a slow smile catching at his lips. “You promise you won’t tell, Cloud? I’m not supposed to talk to people, and I don’t want to get in trouble."

“I won’t.” Cloud swore. “But… Where are your friends if you don’t talk to anyone?”

“I don’t really have any, I suppose.” Sephiroth said after a moment. “It’s just me and my parents. It always has been.”

Cloud considered this, then nodded, still holding Sephiroth’s hand through the gate.

“Me either.” He said. “I don’t really have any friends either.”

He hoped the other boy would want what he wanted. Hoped he’d pick up the hint. Hoped, selfishly, that he never got to talk to any of the other kids, because if he did he’d realize how stupid it was to talk to Cloud…

“Oh.” Sephiroth said, his fingers twitching under Cloud’s hand. “Would you… Like to meet up here sometimes then? I can’t go outside every day, but…”

“I would.” Cloud whispered intensely. “Is that okay? I could bring you something nice as a thank you? Since you fixed my arm.”

“Something nice?” Cloud watched Sephiroth’s expression brighten, ever so slightly.

“Like some of mom’s cookies? They're really good. I bet I could bring you one!”

“Okay.” Sephiroth said, his voice quiet but his expression steadily brightening. “I’d like that. Is it okay?”

“Of course!” Cloud clung to his hand like a lifeline. A friend, a friend, a secret, but maybe that was better. If he was a secret no one could take him away. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

“I’ll try.” Sephiroth said, smiling.

“I’m glad you broke the rules.” Cloud told him earnestly. “I’d have been really in trouble without your help.”

“Vincent always says ‘Some Rules are for Breaking.’” Sephiroth informed him.

“You call your dad ‘Vincent?’” Cloud asked, and Sephiroth only shrugged again with that same ‘so what’ look on his face.

* * *

“You’re late,” Cloud’s mother informed him when he came home. “You weren’t getting in trouble, were you?”

“Just taking a walk.” Cloud said. “I made a friend, I think.”

“Oh?” She wiped her hands on a towel, turning to look at Cloud with a look that said she wasn’t daring to hope.

“His name is Sephiroth, and he’s got white hair and green eyes and he can do magic.” Cloud informed her, starting out excited only to realize in horror that he wasn’t supposed to have said any of that. And, from his mother's expression, that it sounded made up...

“Ah,” his mother said with a surprisingly knowing smile, “you have an imaginary friend?”

Cloud’s heart hurt, and his face heated up with embarrassment. He might not have known a lot, but he knew that the others at school would tease him for having an imaginary friend without a doubt.

“Can it be a secret?” He asked, his fingers tangling in his shirt anxiously.

“I think that’s a very good idea,” His mother said with a tight, sad smile. “Try not to stay out too late playing, alright? I don’t want to stifle you Cloud, but you have chores, and I don’t want you missing dinner. Alright?”

“Alright.” Cloud agreed.

That night he snuck out of bed and packed three small cookies into a handkerchief, hiding them in his backpack.

When Cloud went to the back gate of the mansion the next day, Sephiroth was there waiting. He looked just as excited to see that Cloud had come as Cloud was that he was there. It was strange, and awkward. They didn’t know what to say, or what to do, but Cloud had cookies in his bag, so he shared them. And Sephiroth ate one bite and instantly the stilted, uncomfortable awkwardness died in the wake of his shocked, delighted look.

“Your mother made these?” He asked, his mouth still full of cookie crumbs.

“Yeah,” Cloud said, grinning. “She’s a baker here in town, but she always brings home extras.”

“This is…” Sephiroth finished the cookie in another bite. Licked his fingers as if he’d forgotten entirely that he wasn’t alone. Cloud grinned in pride, delighted to have supplied something that no one else could have. Some of his fear at not having anything to offer faded.

“Can I have another?” Sephiroth asked.

“Of course,” Cloud offered him the bandanna. “I brought them all for you!”

He would remember the grin that lit Sephiroth’s face for the rest of his life. The way his missing tooth humanized his ghostly pale face. The way it seemed like something fell away from him in that moment.

He would also remember the quiet self-sacrifice of that solemn nine-year-old insisting that Cloud have one of the cookies, because they were good, and he did not want to eat them alone.

* * *

“Cloud.” Greeted Sephiroth through the gate, months later. Months of clandestine meetings, of Cloud waiting quietly on days Sephiroth couldn’t come, and Sephiroth later telling him about the lessons he was stuck in or the books or work he’d had to finish. His homeschool sounded way harder than Cloud's classes...

“Hi.” Cloud whispered, grinning. “I brought the cookies! Mom gave me a whole bunch today! I’m supposed to make them last, but I’d rather eat ‘em all with you. And I brought paper and colors like you said!”

“I have a surprise too.” Sephiroth said, all but vibrating in excitement. “Two! First, look.”

He pulled from behind his back a brand-new box full of little drawers of pastels. Cloud gaped at them, their elegant wrapping, the range of colors. They were incredible.

“My uncle Gast visited last week.” Sephiroth whispered, beaming in delight. His front tooth was growing in, an awkward flash of white in red gums. “He brought me these for my birthday, even though it’s not for another month.”

“Your birthday’s in a month?” Cloud replied, feeling sudden surprise. He’d never had a friend to give a birthday gift to before. He’d have to plan…

“Yes. Do you want to draw? I wanted to last time, but I thought it’d be more fun if you had your colors too.”

“Of course!” Cloud was struggling to maintain his whisper past his excitement. “It’ll be a little rough, the ground here’s kinda—”

“That’s the second surprise.” Sephiroth’s grin took on a wicked look. “See, I asked Vincent how he did his floating thing, and he said something about his ‘darker parts’, so I asked Hojo instead, and he said to ask Mother—”

“Wait, Hojo? How many parents do you have?”

“I dunno. Mother says three, Vincent says two, and Hojo says four, but I live with three of them, so...” He shrugged. “Anyhow, _mother_ said that Vincent wants it bad enough so it happens. Just like me with fixing it when you got hurt! So look. Look what I learned to do.”

Cloud watched. Watched the silver-haired boy back away from the fence, steady himself for a long moment, then sprint forward. He jumped. Cloud gaped, neck arched to watch him soar over the wall that had divided them and tumble inelegantly to the rough forest floor.

Cloud shut his mouth before any mosquitoes could fly in. He hurried over to help Sephiroth up. Gripped his hand and pulled him to his feet with a grunt of effort.

“Are your colors okay?” Cloud asked, reaching out with shaking hands to pat some of the dirt off of Sephiroth’s shirt.

“They’re fine.” Sephiroth said. “Did I surprise you?”

“Yes!” Exclaimed Cloud. “You can fly!”

“Not all the way yet.” Sephiroth said. “But I can jump very high now, and I think that’s a good start. Do you know a good place to color?”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

“No.” Sephiroth said flippantly, tossing his hair. “They’re fighting about ethics again. I’m safe for at least a couple hours.”

Cloud grabbed him in a hug. Then immediately realized it was a mistake. Sephiroth went so still and stiff against him, his box of colors still under his arm, his other hand stiff at his side, his whole body frozen against Cloud’s.

“Oh,” Cloud said, backing off quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” Sephiroth said, his voice low and careful. “Just warn me?”

“How about if you want one you can hug me?” Cloud offered. “I like hugs, so I won’t mind any time. But I won't grab you again.”

“Okay.” Sephiroth said, nodding.  
  
Cloud tucked his chin, embarrassed by messing up so badly with his only friend. Sephiroth lay his hand on the almost-invisible scar on Cloud’s arm from when they first met.

“It’s good to be on the same side of the fence.” Sephiroth said, smiling. “That’s what you meant. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then me too.” Sephiroth said, not hugging him, but not seeming angry. “I like it too.”

Cloud grinned at him, wiggling his loose top tooth with his tongue to watch Sephiroth’s answering grin. The other boy wiggled his newly loosened bottom tooth in return. It felt almost like a secret handshake, and left them both stifling laughter. With a bubbling feeling of excitement Cloud led him away from the mansion with Sephiroth still holding onto his arm.

The clearing was his previous hideaway, before Sephiroth had spoken to him on his way there those months ago. It was sunny and grassy, surrounded by shrubs. Cloud didn’t know what had formed the lucky arrangement. Some fallen tree, or an abandoned construction idea. Either way, it had left it a beautiful place for a child. The sort of forest clearing that they wrote about in books.

Sephiroth’s smile said everything.

“This is the furthest I’ve been from home.” He whispered. Cloud recognized his expression. That delicious, tempting mix of fear and excitement. His cheeks even had a bit of color--a touch of pink in the sunshine.

“Let’s go draw on the other side then,” Cloud encouraged, jogging forward with Sephiroth hurrying after him. “Then you’ll be even farther!”

“We don’t have to whisper!” Sephiroth added, his voice louder and brighter than Cloud had heard it before.

“We don’t!” Cloud cried in delight, laughing as Sephiroth veered into him, bumping their shoulders together playfully.

“What are you going to draw?” Sephiroth asked, dropping down to sit on the grass.

“Something cool.” Said Cloud firmly, pulling off his backpack and unzipping it.

He started by removing his drawing paper and the bag of crayons he’d brought from home first. Then he reverently took out the bundle of cookies, setting them on the ground as he sat beside Sephiroth. He untied the top, and grinned at the way Sephiroth eyed them, trying to be aloof.

“They’re beautiful.” Sephiroth said.

“Mom would love you.” Cloud chuckled. “You say such nice things about her baking!”

“She bakes such nice things.” Sephiroth reached out to select one of the chocolate-dipped cookies first.

“What are you going to draw?” Cloud asked, watching Sephiroth munch on the cookie while he looked at his paper.

“I think,” Sephiroth said slowly, “that I’ll draw the family. They always perk up a little when I draw us. Hojo and Vincent don’t like to admit it, though.”

The ended up both lying in the grass. Cloud worked industriously on designing a perfect motorcycle. He told Sephiroth about all its pieces. How it’d go super fast, and drive backwards as fast as forwards, and maybe be full of swords or something. Sephiroth listened with interest, though perhaps a touch of skepticism too.

Cloud tried not to notice how much more vibrant Sephiroth’s colors were than his.

But when he moved on to his second picture, Sephiroth shifted his box of colors in between them.

“I have so many,” Sephiroth said, nonchalantly, his eyes on the picture before him. Cloud was trying not to peek to blatantly at his family drawing, but it was an interesting image to say the least… “I can’t use them all at once.”

“I might break them though,” Cloud said uneasily. “And they’re so nice…”

“If you break them it’ll be extra special, because I’ll always remember you used it.” Sephiroth said, his feet kicking behind him as he industriously colored a wooden floor under his family’s feet. “Besides, if you broke it in half then we’d both have one of that color.”

Cloud stared at him, then carefully shifted the cookies closer to Sephiroth, and oh-so-delicately removed the brightest green in the box. He had a good idea for his next picture, and he'd need that green for the eyes.

He gifted Sephiroth the drawing when they were packing up to go home.

“It’s me!” Sephiroth proclaimed, delighted, grinning at Cloud's inexpert drawing of his face.

“Do you like it?” Cloud asked shyly. “You looked really happy today so I wanted to draw you.”

“I am really happy today.” Sephiroth said, smiling down at the picture.

“Then… Now you can remember.” Cloud said, catching Sephiroth's infectious smile as always. “Our first adventure.”

Sephiroth carefully closed the drawing in his notebook, and hugged it to his chest, along with his family portrait.

“I didn’t draw you one.” Sephiroth murmured, sounding upset.

“That’s okay,” Cloud grinned. “Next time.”

Next time Sephiroth drew Cloud, and Cloud drew his mom. Then they both drew motorcycles. Sephiroth's had a machine gun.

The time after that, they just lay in the grass and talked.

Cloud kept the drawing of himself that Sephiroth had made, sunny and grinning with eyes a way brighter blue than Cloud thought would have been fair. He loved that drawing, but he thought that those other days were his favorites. When they just lay there and talked and listened.

* * *

Another month and they were inseparable. The days they couldn't meet because of Sephiroth’s lessons were agonizing. The hours they spent together seemed too short, with Cloud needing to do his chores and eat at home, and Sephiroth needing to ensure he wasn’t caught outside of the mansion’s yard.

Cloud managed to talk his mother into making a sweet cake for his lunch on the day of Sephiroth’s birthday. He saved it for him, presenting it carefully with a drawing of the two of them, holding hands. Cloud had dared to write ‘best friends’ on the top of the drawing. Sephiroth shared his cake, and had held the picture close to his chest all that afternoon.

Sephiroth got really good at jumping over the fence. Cloud tried once or twice to do the thing Sephiroth did, where he just wanted it bad enough. But he just couldn’t jump like Sephiroth could.

“It’s okay.” Sephiroth had said. “Neither can mother or Hojo.”

Twice more Cloud had showed up with scratches and bruises. Both times Sephiroth had insisted on trying to fix him. His touch was always just on the edge of burning when he did his healing thing. But Cloud never complained about that or the goosebumps it rose on his arms or how strange he felt for a second after. Sephiroth wanted to keep him safe, and Cloud would have appreciated that alone. But it really was a relief to hurt less after Sephiroth’s work.

It always made Sephiroth tired, but he seemed so proud when he succeeded that it didn’t bother him much.

In the fourth month of their friendship, Cloud showed up to find Sephiroth sitting outside the gate already, not waiting to jump until Cloud arrived like he usually did. Cloud knew he liked showing off, but he couldn't hold it against him. He'd have shown off too, if he could jump like that.  
  
Sephiroth looked… wrong. Sitting there all still and silent. Cloud slowed down, his chest tightening at the sight of Sephiroth curled with his knees up to his chest and his head pressed into his hands.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud said softly. His breath misted in the newly crisp autumn air, the chill wind not quite penetrating his downy jacket.

Sephiroth wasn’t wearing a jacket, he noted. He wasn’t even wearing shoes.

He looked up at Cloud’s approach and stood abruptly, as if he was forcing himself to his feet.

“Cloud,” He said. Even his voice sounded wrong. Too breathy. Too small. “Can we go? I’m sorry, I—”

He didn’t have his colors. He didn’t seem to have anything except a sad, worried expression. Cloud hurried forward to catch his hand and pull him away from the mansion and towards their spot.

“Did something happen?” He asked, only when they were in their spot, far away from the house. “Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?”

“I’m not hurt.” Sephiroth said, standing close to Cloud. Cloud could feel him shivering, just a little. “Vincent and Hojo were fighting again. They do sometimes. Mother says to just stay out of the way, but…”

“Did they hit you?” Cloud asked, cold with fury, squeezing Sephiroth’s hand.

“No.” Sephiroth said quietly. “They aren’t bad people, Cloud. They just… They fight a lot. I think the three of them only stayed close because of me. I think it’s bad for them. Today… Today they were fighting, and mother left because they were being annoying, and Vincent hurt Hojo. I think it was an accident. I want to think it was. Hojo’s just human, you know? It’s hard for Vincent sometimes. Mother says he’s full of sharp things.”

Cloud watched him breathe. Watched him try to calm himself down.

“But Hojo was bleeding and I didn’t… I don’t always like him, but he’s family, and I was scared. So I healed him. The way I've healed you. Only everyone got really quiet. Hojo kept saying I shouldn’t be able to do it. At first I was just happy he wasn’t hurt anymore, but he seemed so upset then, and I didn’t… I don’t think I did anything wrong. But when they told mother what happened, she told me not to ever do it again. She said it was dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Does it hurt you?” Cloud asked, feeling worry churn in his gut. “You get so tired…”

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth said uncertainly. “She wouldn’t say. She told me she needed to talk to Vincent and Hojo, and I left. They still haven’t come looking for me. It’s been hours, I think. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know what I did wrong…”

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Cloud argued, shaking his head. “I think they should be grateful. Especially Hojo. You wanted to help, and you did. You’re amazing at it.”

“Does it hurt you?” Sephiroth asked, his eyes tracing over Cloud’s expression. “Or… Or do something bad to you? I don’t… I didn’t—”

“No!” Cloud objected. “Not at all. It feels nice, and you’re always so careful. But you don’t have to do it, okay? If you don’t want to anymore, I understand. I’m just sorry. I know how bad it feels to see your parents upset, or… Or to know you let them down and not understand why.”

Sephiroth nodded, slowly. Then he swallowed hard.

“Is it still okay for me to start hugs?” He whispered.

Cloud nodded, waiting. Sephiroth extended his arms, wrapped them around Cloud in careful motions.. He was stiff a long moment. Cloud was anxious as he hugged him back, but he felt like Sephiroth needed it. So he squeezed him, his palms flat against his best friend's back. Sephiroth’s breath hitched at the tender touch, and Cloud felt him bury his face into his spiky blond hair. The arms around him tightened with slow uncertainty. He doesn’t want to hurt you, Cloud thought, and squeezed him just a little tighter to show it was okay.

Cloud tried to think of something to say, but he didn’t know much about having parents who fought. He knew about fighting with his mother, sure. He knew about being worried for her. For her loneliness. He knew about yelling and groundings and story time at night.

He’d never known his mother to hurt anyone, or to fuss at him for trying to help.

But he did know something she said that _always_ made him feel better.

“They are really lucky to have you.” He told Sephiroth, tangling his hands in the back of his shirt. “They are so, so lucky.”

Sephiroth shuddered. Held him tighter. Cloud clung to him in return.

“So am I.” Cloud whispered, pressing as close as he could to Sephiroth’s heat in the cool mountain air.

Sephiroth didn’t heal him again after that. Cloud did his best to make sure Sephiroth didn’t see any cuts or bruises he might carry. Whenever he did see them, he still tried to take care of them with whatever mundane means they had available, but Cloud could see that some of his confidence had shaken loose after the incident with his mother.

* * *

Winter wasn’t easy. It was too cold for Cloud to stay outside for so long, and Sephiroth worried over him too much to let him push himself.

“You’re human.” He would say with a worried frown, wrapping Cloud in his arms.

After their first hug the floodgates had opened, and Cloud found himself wrapped in Sephiroth’s hold more and more frequently. He loved it.

“So are you.” He’d complained. “Are you doing the flying thing again? Just deciding not to be cold?”

“No.” Sephiroth said, his nose wrinkling. “It’s cold.”

It was Cloud who had the idea to leave notes for each other while it was too cold to meet every day. And worse, while Sephiroth’s parents might see their footprints in the snow. Sephiroth left notes for him in their clearing, with hardly any footprints around them. Sephiroth was getting better at floating, Cloud thought.

In return Cloud left him cookies and short letters. Once, when he asked Sephiroth what books he liked and got some weird answer about math, he left his favorite novel in the clearing for him. It was scary, leaving it bundled up against the snow. Scarier knowing it would be days before he knew whether Sephiroth thought the book was stupid like most of Cloud’s classmates did.

When he found the book back in the clearing a week later, it was full of scraps of paper, covered in scrawling notes. Some of them had doodles of the main character–a sword-wielding mouse. Others had Sephiroth’s comments scrawled on them. Cloud read them all that night in his room, holding his book close. He grinned down at the proof that even when they were apart he and Sephiroth were still on the same page.

He left him books more often after that.

When at last spring came the friends took to it like birds did. The very first day it was above freezing and the snow was melted away Sephiroth leapt the gate in an easy bound and wrapped Cloud in a tight hug, clinging and laughing. They had run together after that. Not to their usual spot, not to get anywhere or do anything or even to escape something. They had just run together.

Sephiroth was faster, but he was more interested in staying with Cloud that blazing ahead. His bottom tooth had fallen out over the winter, and was already regrowing itself. Cloud admired his new top tooth when they stopped for breath. Then he showed off his own missing molar, pulling his cheek aside proudly to display it. Then they’d run more, further. Through the forests, around rocks, hopping over streams still filled with freezing cold snow from the mountain tops.

Sephiroth was deer-like. Graceful in a way that spoke of a body made for movement. Cloud had none of his grace, but made up for it in tenacity. He charged after Sephiroth’s elegant run, head down and teeth bared in a wild grin. He was, if nothing else, far better at letting go.

By the time they got back to the mansion, even Sephiroth had seemed a little tired.

“I’m glad it’s warm out again,” Sephiroth murmured, walking close by Cloud. “Now I can tell you how much I like your books in person.”

“I’m glad it’s spring too,” Cloud said. “I missed you so much.”

Sephiroth’s smile would have melted any snow storm, Cloud thought to himself, feeling butterflies in his stomach.

“I missed you too.” Sephiroth murmured, and held Cloud’s hand until they had to say goodbye.

It was a wonderful spring. And the summer that followed was the best of both their lives. Without school, Cloud was free to sneak sweet cookies to Sephiroth, and leave him notes, and books, and gifts. As they explored the woods together, going farther and farther. Cloud often wondered why Sephiroth’s parents didn’t come looking for him. He knew why his mom didn’t. She was working more and more recently, and so long as he was home by dinner, it was frankly less trouble for her if he kept himself entertained.

Besides, ever since befriending Sephiroth his schoolwork had gotten better. After all, now he had a reason to practice his writing, to read more books. And when he’d asked Sephiroth for help with math, he’d learned more in ten minutes than in years before.

* * *

There are some things that seem like they'll never end, both for good and for evil. Some summers, some winters, some years, some days. Friendships, and romances, and lives. For Cloud it was Sephiroth’s presence. For Sephiroth, it was Cloud’s.

When Cloud was eleven, he showed up to find Sephiroth (newly fourteen and brooding about it) sitting on top of the wall outside the mansion, looking morose.

“Hey.” Cloud called up warmly, an easy smile on his face. “Trying to get us caught after all this time?”

But Sephiroth didn’t laugh or joke in return. He only jumped off the wall and started walking towards their clearing. Cloud frowned at his back, worry gnawing at his chest. But he jogged to catch up, sticking by Sephiroth’s side.

“Did Hojo and Vincent fight again?” Cloud asked softly. “Or is Lucrecia going through one of her down times?”

“No.” Sephiroth said quietly. “They’re all getting along splendidly right now.”

“Well,” Cloud said slowly, “that’s unusual.”

“Cloud." Said Sephiroth, morose. “They’ve agreed it’s time to move to Midgar.”

Cloud felt his blood run cold. He dropped his bookbag, heedless of the coffee cake inside he’d saved for Sephiroth.

“What?” He asked, his blood rushing in his ears.

“They’ve always talked about it.” Sephiroth muttered, his eyes on the ground. His voice had changed the year before. Dropped to such a low, beautiful octave so easily. It had hardly ever cracked. Cloud's voice had only barely started to shift, and already it was cracks all over.   
  
“They said something about a position waiting for me there." Sephiroth continued. "About Mother and Hojo’s life’s work. About Vincent’s loyalty. They all work for Shinra. Did I ever tell you that? Mother and Hojo are scientists for them, and Vincent’s a Turk.”

“But Midgar...” Cloud whispered, his throat feeling raw with restrained tears. “That’s so far.”

“I know.” Sephiroth said softly.

“How long do I have you?” Cloud asked, catching Sephiroth’s hand.

“We’re leaving in two days,” Sephiroth said, his own voice sounding suspiciously tight, though he didn’t so much as tear up. Cloud stared up into his face, so familiar to him, so strange in comparison to everyone else he’d ever met. So beautiful. So sad.

“They think I should be happy.” Sephiroth whispered. “They think I have been lonely. They say there are new friends waiting to meet me. Two boys 'like me.' That’s what mother said, at least. When she said it Hojo laughed, though, and it was his mean laugh. Vincent won’t talk to me about it. I don’t know what to do.”

Cloud squeezed his hand tighter. Watched the misery play across his face.

“We could run together,” Sephiroth offered after a long silence, standing in their clearing. They had tied umbrellas to low-hanging tree branches to offer them shade, and little origami decorations they’d learned to make dangled in strings off their handles. There were blankets on the grass, and pillows under the trees, and messages in secret code based around whatever book they were reading at the time scattered under rocks and on the trees.

Cloud looked around their space. His safety. His home away from home for the past four or five years. He looked to Sephiroth, so much taller than him. So much more than him in every way.

“You were always meant for bigger things, I think.” Cloud said softly. “I always kind of knew you’d go away some day. You can fly, Sephiroth. And run so fast I can’t see you, and punch so hard... Remember when you killed that nibelwolf with nothing but your fist? You are amazing. You deserve more than Nibelheim.”

“So do you.” Sephiroth insisted, his brows twisting. “Why is it you will never believe me that you are just as worthy as I am, Cloud?”

Cloud only gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand tighter.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispered, his voice choked, “but I don’t think we should run away. Neither of us would be really happy living in a cave the rest of our lives.”

“I might be.” Sephiroth argued. “If you were there.”

“I would really hate for you to get tired of me, though.” Cloud teased gently. “Come on, Sephiroth. It’s just a different city. I know it’s… I know you don’t want this. But, I mean, we won’t be kids forever. When we’re older, we can live wherever we want. Go wherever we want…”

“I just want things to stay how they are.” Sephiroth whispered. “I don’t want to be alone again.”

Me neither, thought Cloud, his heart breaking. But he didn’t say it, because one of them was already shattering. And Sephiroth…

Things were harder for Sephiroth, sometimes. His parents were around, but they weren’t always there for him. There was a reason they had been meeting for years without ever being caught.

“Write to me?” Cloud offered softly. “Even if we can’t see each other all the time, if you send me a letter, and tell me how to reach you, I’ll write back. As often as I can. It’s not… It’s not enough, but..." He hesitated. Cast about for some comfort. "It’ll be just like a long winter! We'll write notes until we meet up again in the spring.”

Sephiroth nodded, but he didn't speak. His head was still lowered. His eyes down, and dark, and sad, and Cloud wanted to kiss him. Had wanted to kiss him for so long now. But now…

Now would be the worst possible time for that.

“Hey.” Cloud said. “Remember that cool book series about blood pacts?”

“The Necromancer’s Wife saga, yes.” Sephiroth replied quietly.

“Want to make one? A blood pact, not a saga.”

“I don’t want to make you bleed.” Sephiroth objected, scowling. “That is literally my least favorite thing.”

“You won’t be making me bleed! I’ll be making me bleed, and you do yours, and then we’ll shake on it. Blood pact. So that we always meet up again.”

“I think there’s something wrong with my blood.” Sephiroth muttered, turning his head away from Cloud.

“Hey.” Cloud said, smiling. “Trust me.”

“It’s unhygienic.” Sephiroth argued. “Frankly it’s a biohazard.”

“You sound like your mom again.”

“I hate it when you call her my ‘mom.’”

“Sephiroth. Come on. You’re not going to hurt me. I promise. Please. Let me… Let me have this. I want to know I’ll see you again. I want to know for sure.”

Sephiroth turned to stare at him. Watched him with those intense, impossible eyes. He didn’t answer with words. Only nodded once and pulled the dagger Vincent had given him for his thirteenth birthday. Cloud smiled at the sight of it. It had caused a terrible series of fights in the mansion, but for once Sephiroth hadn’t minded. He loved his knife enough not to care that his mother kept muttering ‘damn Turks’ and Hojo kept snickering snidely.

“Me first.” Sephiroth said softly.

Cloud nodded, and watched as his best friend rested the blade over his skin.

“We’ll have to move fast,” Sephiroth warned. “I’ve been healing more quickly recently. Hojo says his treatments are working.”

“I won’t hesitate.” Cloud assured him.

Sephiroth sliced open his left palm without more than a grimace. Cloud took the knife and sliced open his right. He clenched back a scream, his brows furrowing. How had Sephiroth not even reacted to that? It HURT!

He saw his friend hesitate at the noise, and gripped Sephiroth’s hand tightly in his own before he could change his mind, letting their blood mingle. The knife Cloud held above their hands, letting their joined blood drip off its point as they bled onto each other and onto the ground. It stung terribly, but it felt right. Magic. Binding.

“By my blood I swear I will be beside you again.” Cloud said firmly. “Now you.”

“By my blood,” Sephiroth said, his voice a low mutter, “I will be beside you again, Cloud.”

Cloud smiled at him, and released his hand at last. When Sephiroth insisted, Cloud let him bandage the cut in his palm. They'd stored first aid equipment in their hideaway too. But any concerns Sephiroth raised Cloud waved away.

“It’s fine,” He said warmly. “It’ll heal in no time, Sephiroth. Just because you heal faster doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t heal. Thank you. I feel better. I know I’ll see you again now.”

“You will.” Sephiroth said softly. “You always would have.”

* * *

Sephiroth’s first letter came while Cloud’s hand was still healing. His mother didn’t believe his excuse about cutting it open trying to look cool jumping over a chain link fence, but she had just rolled her eyes when he said ‘alright, I confess, Sephiroth and I made a blood oath together.’

The letter arrived for him, scrawled hastily in a familiar hand, and Cloud tore it open at once.

> Cloud,
> 
> I already hate this city. Everything is noisy and moving. They say I’m going to learn to fight here, and they think I ought to be happy about that. They know how much I love sparring with Vincent, I guess. But I just want to come home.
> 
> I hope that you are well. The ‘boys like me’ are nothing like me at all. One of them is very loud and seems like he thinks he’s important, and the other seems like he doesn’t think much of me. He’s only a year older than me, but he looks at me like I’m an annoying kid.
> 
> I think you have spoiled me. Mother says I must see them as allies, if not as potential friends, but they pale so terribly in comparison to you. I think it might actually be hugely unfair to them. Even writing this I think I should give them another chance. It may not be their fault that the only friend I want is far away from me. It is not fair that they were best friends back at their home. I wish you were going to be a Soldier. Then you could be my ally and my friend and my comrade in arms. You would be amazing.
> 
> I miss you, and I hope your mother is well. Tell her cakes that I miss them already. I am definitely spoiled because of them, and no big-city delicacy can tempt me now.
> 
> –Sephiroth

Cloud wrote back in small spurts, as his aching hand allowed.

> Sephiroth,
> 
> It sounds like you’re being just a teeny tiny bit harsh on the whole experience. But who am I to talk? All I do is lie around in bed and miss you. Sometimes I think you got the better end of the deal, even though I know you don’t want to be there. Everything I’ve ever liked about this town is in Midgar now, but there are all these shadows of you everywhere. I went to the clearing the other day and just cried for an hour because you weren’t there. How pathetic is that?
> 
> If I came to Midgar when I was old enough, could I join and be a Soldier too? I want to be your comrade and your friend and your ally! I don’t know if I’d be any good at it, but it would be nice to know that you were safe.
> 
> Your new friends sound like they might be a little difficult… But I bet you’re right. Because, like, okay, you know Tifa? I’ve wanted to be friends with Tifa forever. But right now, if she asked me to go out for ice cream, I’d be like ‘no thanks.’ And it’s not because she’s not nice and cool and better than everyone else in this town except you. I just don’t want to be around anyone at all.
> 
> No one compares with you. I hope your new friends in Midgar will see how amazing you are. I hope they are half as wonderful.
> 
> I miss you too, and I hope this letter makes it to you and that Vincent and Hojo and Lucrecia didn’t intercept it. If they did, hi Sephiroth’s parents! I’m Sephiroth’s imaginary friend, and definitely not a real guy in Nibelheim. Please don’t kill me with your Turk powers!
> 
> –Cloud

Sephiroth’s reply followed mercifully close.

> Cloud,
> 
> Turks do not have ‘powers’, Vincent is just full of demons that my mother gave him because Hojo shot him in the head one time, I think. I know I’ve told you this before. Try to keep up.
> 
> Genesis and Angeal aren’t as bad as I thought. They’re fun to spar with, and I’m learning to understand them better with some practice. Genesis is angry a lot of the time, but I don't mind that too much. He did try to hug me too much at first. I told him our rule, that I’m only okay with hugs if I’m initiating, but that smaller touches are okay. I thought he’d laugh at me, but he actually seemed happy that I told him? I don’t know what to make of him yet.
> 
> Angeal has grown on me quickly. He’s sort of got that thing that Uncle Gast does, where he says something confusing like it’s serious, then starts laughing when everyone gets confused. He can be very serious though. I think mostly what I thought was him judging me was him being sad. Mother told me his father died recently. I asked her if there wasn’t anyone to save him, like she saved Vincent. She didn’t talk for a long time after that, so I don’t think I’ll ask again, even though she never did answer me.
> 
> I don’t see Vincent much anymore. Or Hojo or even Mother. Everyone is so busy doing Shinra things. I guess I am too, and in a way I’m glad. Otherwise writing you would be harder.
> 
> It would be amazing if you were to come and join Soldier! I’m very good at fighting already. Angeal and Genesis are pretty good too. I think you could learn in no time. You have always been so stubborn. I still do not like this city, but I think I would like it more if you were here.
> 
> Please tell me the title of a book I should read when you reply. There is a library here, but I do not know where to start. I have always relied on you to tell me what books to try.
> 
> –Sephiroth.

It wasn’t the same. It was hard, and sad. Cloud wrote to him almost every other day, depending on how quickly the mail moved. And slowly, inch by inch, the longest winter of their lives dragged by.

When Sephiroth told him he was going to Wutai, that there would be a gap in his letters, Cloud thought he knew what it felt to be devastated.

On the third week without so much as a note, Cloud was well-nigh inconsolable. When Sephiroth’s letter finally did arrive, Cloud snatched it away from his confused mother. Until then he’d always gotten to the mailbox first. Always kept his letters secret as his friendship had been. Now he opened the dirty letter to read it with a sick feeling between hope and terror in his stomach.

> Cloud,
> 
> Do not join Soldier after all. We are at war, and it is not something you should see.
> 
> I miss you every day. I miss our clearing, and our codes, and our secrets. I wish I had a scar where we made our blood oath. Do you?
> 
> Please give me some news of you. Some happy tidbit or another. A book you read and loved, or your mother’s newest recipe. I am so tired already, and I think we are just beginning.
> 
> Genesis almost died yesterday. I didn’t realize we were friends until I saw him get shot. I hope you will forgive me for being friends with him and Angeal, Cloud. I am. Maybe it was inevitable, doing this with them. I do not think I would be even capable of writing if not for their company and support.
> 
> I will wait for your letter. Please write to me here. Do not worry about being secretive. No one would dare read my letters now.
> 
> I think you will see me in the papers soon. They took a lot of pictures of me.
> 
> I miss you.
> 
> Sephiroth

Cloud didn’t know which piece of the message to fixate on. The deadened tone, the fear he felt in every line. The exhaustion. The danger to a man he’d never met that left him feeling cold. Sephiroth’s letters had made him feel like he knew Genesis and Angeal. Like he was some external member of their friendship. He was pretty sure they didn’t even know he existed.

But the part his brain kept circling back to…

Cloud looked at his palm, where they had sealed the blood pact. There was a scar, alright. Like no other he had. There was a pattern of hexagons, pale flesh layered over his palm. A mismatch that might have passed at a brief look, but upon closer inspection clearly did not belong. How many nights had he stayed awake, tracing those figures, wondering what it meant. For him. For Sephiroth. For the two of them.

He did not mention the scar when he wrote back. He only hoped that Sephiroth would have forgotten that he asked. He talked instead about starting to go to the bakery with his mother. To help her work, to learn how to make all of the treats he had so gleefully shared with Sephiroth over the years.

He wrote about how he revisited their clearing to find birds nesting on their umbrellas, and rabbit burrows around their blankets. About how he’d snuck into the mansion and crept around, just to see the place where Sephiroth used to live.

He wrote three pages, and secretly sealed it with a kiss. No one had to know. But just like with the blood pact, he knew. And for the moment, that was enough.

Sephiroth was in the paper the next morning, and Cloud wished he had waited to write his letter. Then he could have included a description of the look on his mother’s face when she saw her son’s imaginary friend right underneath the headline about Shinra’s new Super Soldier program.

He saved that description for a rainy day, smiling as his mother spluttered and stared.

* * *

There were many rainy days. Sephiroth wrote to him, as often as he could, Cloud knew. Cloud wrote back. He could tell Sephiroth tried to keep his letters light. To tell Cloud the good things. The beautiful things. He talked a great deal about Genesis and Angeal. About their adventures, when they were not fighting. About their odd friendship, and how it differed from their own.

They were a bright spot in his life, Cloud could tell. But as the letters went, the terrible, miserable exhaustion began to fade. Cloud couldn’t decide whether to feel fear or relief when a letter came after months in Wutai that contained the line ‘I feel I am finally getting the hang of war.’

Cloud agnozied for a long while over what to write back to that. Should he be glad that Sephiroth felt less frayed? Sorry, that he’d had to become accustomed to something that had constantly broken his heart in his previous letters? Relieved that he would be safer if he was used to it? Terrified for him, that it was eating away at who he was?

He didn’t know. So he only said how glad he was that Sephiroth was still safe. How much he worried. How he was going to make him the most amazing treats when they met up again.

But already years had gone by. Years of their terrible silent winter, sending notes through strangers' hands, into the hands of a man who was becoming a stranger.

Do not become a Soldier, Sephiroth’s first letter from Wutai had read. But more and more, Cloud craved to be part of his friend’s life again.

The hexagon scars on his palm itched with the want for him.

When the war ended Cloud nearly cried for relief. He baked a cake in celebration, on his own. His mother shared it with him, but her knowing, sad looks had begun to wear on Cloud’s heart. She knew he wanted to go.

“He seems to have found his place.” She had offered, more than once, over any paper with a picture of Sephiroth.

“Can I have it when you’re done?” Cloud would ask. “It’s a good picture of him.”

Sephiroth wrote to him about going back to Shinra. About his parents, and how strange they seemed to him now in the shadow of war. How small their obsessions. He wrote about struggling to fit back into his skin in the world outside of war. He wrote about fears that part of him had died there. Fears that something had been born in him that would not be easily extinguished.

His letters repeated, often, how much Cloud was missed. How much he wished to see him again. Cloud thought back to their early letters, when he had asked Sephiroth if Soldiers ever got summer breaks. Just like Cloud with the question about his scar, Sephiroth had never replied.

Months and years passed like that. Writing back and forth, with Cloud feeling ever more like an intruder in Sephiroth’s life. He missed him like a hole in his side. He often visited the ghost of their clearing, strung now only with the skeletons of umbrellas and the birds nests that had remained where their decorations faded. He often looked at the drawings in his notebook made by a steady hand with beautiful colors from a man Cloud had never met, but who he had heard many kind words about.

Sephiroth’s first drawing of Cloud remained his prized possession. He kept it pinned to his wall now that it wasn’t a secret in his own home. He looked at it, and hoped that Sephiroth still saw him even a little bit like that. Shining, smiling, and right beside him.

He woke up with a sense of dread a month later. One that would not leave him alone. That plagued him with no source, internal or external, that he could find.

He saw the headline the next day. That Genesis had gone MIA.

Sephiroth did not write him.

The second week of waiting for a reply to his letter, Cloud finally broke down.

“Mom,” he said, “can you handle the shop alone a few days?”

She had stared at him, her gaze so flat and unimpressed that he felt kind of like he ought to apologize for asking.

“I ran this shop for how many years before you were born?” She said, crossing her arms. “A few days is nothing. Take weeks if you need them.”

Cloud had wrapped her in a hug. It felt strange. He had gotten in the habit of waiting for Sephiroth to initiate hugs, so he just... Hadn't. Not since he left. And now it had been so long…

But his mother’s hands were warm, and she patted his hair gently.

“Help me with a recipe for him before I go?” Cloud had asked, softly.

“Gladly,” his mother had said. “I hear he’s my biggest fan.”

* * *

There were rumors about Angeal vanishing starting to filter into the radio chatter while Cloud was on the boat towards Midgar, sicker than he had been the whole voyage so far. He’d thought the bus was bad…

The news made him shove aside all thoughts of sickness. It was still another day’s journey before he got to Shinra. Who could say what Sephroth must be going through there, alone. His two best friends, MIA. Cloud’s worried letters piling up on his desk.

Cloud kept his leg safely hooked through the duffel he carried, and its precious cargo of cookies, baked by his own hand with his mother’s guidance. Would Sephiroth like them? Would he even _want_ them?

Would Cloud even manage to find him?

Would Sephiroth want to see him if he did?

He didn’t sleep that night, in the ragged motel just outside the beach city that was clearly too rich for his blood. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering helplessly if Sephiroth would still like him, and furious with himself for worrying over that when somewhere his best friend in all the world was in a vast city, completely friendless.

Midgar was both a nightmare and marvel of steel. Cloud rode the train in, holding his bag in his lap, staring out the window in wonder and horror. He tried to keep his emotions off his face. To look less like the out-of-place country boy he was.

His only solace was how easy it was to find Shinra. There was no missing it. As soon as he was on top of the plate, it was there. Towering above the city. It was unspeakable. He couldn’t decide whether to be in awe of it or petrified by it. He chose the former, because fear would do him no good now. He forced himself to walk forwards, wishing he’d thought this through.

The receptionist was, understandably, hesitant to help him. Cloud got that. He did. Especially as he kept bungling the truth as if it were an inept lie.

“We were, uh, childhood friends? I said that like it was a question, I know, but we were. He drew a picture of me once. Oh my god, I sound like a crazy fan, don’t I. I do. I can tell. Holy shit.”

He had to be in awe of the fact that she hadn’t literally arrested him yet, or even told him explicitly to leave. He closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath and lowering his head.

“I won’t… Take up your time.” He murmured. “Just please, if you can, tell him Cloud is thinking of him. And if you think you can send something to him? I guess… I mean, they’re only cookies. I get that might not be protocol or whatever…”

“Hey.” She said, smiling warmly. “It’s okay. I’m in the Silver Elite too. It’s sweet of you to think of him. A lot of us are, in these trying times. I’ll try to get the cookies to him, okay? We’re all rooting for him, after all.”

Cloud looked down at the member of the fanclub Sephiroth had told him about. The ones that followed him, tried to catch the scents in his hair. Shared any of his secrets they could steal. The same people who had been partially responsible for the wedge driven slowly between him and Genesis.

“I…” Cloud started, not wanting to think less of the woman who had been nothing but patient. It was hard. Realizing she was with those people who had hounded Sephiroth left him instantly hating her a little. “Thank you.”

He dug in his bag for the cookies. He hadn't gotten his hand around them when he noticed that the room had become very, very quiet.

He lifted his eyes, glancing around, but no one was looking at him. They were looking up at the curved stairways. Cloud looked up too.

And there he was. Descending the stairs like a god. More beautiful in motion, in person than any photograph. That deer-elegance of his youth with all the power of a wildcat. His silver hair a banner, his coat whipping around his calves.

And he was coming to Cloud. Coming straight towards him, as if there was no one else in the world. Cloud dropped his bag. Opened his arms.

Sephiroth grabbed him so tightly, so fiercely, that Cloud lost his breath at the desperation of the motion. Tears sprung to his eyes as he wrapped his arms tight around the man. He was so tall now. So broad, so strong, so different, but he buried his face in Cloud’s hair like he had always liked doing. Shuddered once where Cloud held him.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud whispered, his voice coming out choked and fragile.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth's hand slid up to cup the back of Cloud’s head, holding him against his chest. “You came…”

Cloud’s hands couldn’t find purchase in the leather of his jacket, so he tangled his hands in Sephiroth's hair. He stood on his toes, twisting his head up to rest against Sephiroth's shoulder, his forehead against his neck. Cloud let his eyes fall closed, the feel and the heat of Sephiroth so familiar and so different at once. So terribly missed.

The moment shattered with the soft snap of a camera from nearby. Cloud went utterly tense, but Sephiroth only heaved a slow, quiet sigh. He wasn’t dropped, or shoved away. Sephiroth slid his hand down slowly out of his hair, resting on his shoulder.

“You didn’t have to come all this way.” Sephiroth murmured, ignoring the eyes on them as he gazed down at Cloud.

“I…” Cloud stuttered to a halt, overwhelmed now that he was aware they were being watched.

“Come.” Sephiroth murmured, stooping to pick up Cloud’s bag. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders, steering him away. He carried Cloud's dufflebag easily in his other hand. “Just keep your focus on me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Do not apologize for coming.” Sephiroth whispered, looking down to Cloud. “I have missed you more than I can tell you. Either in a letter or spoken aloud. Will you stay a while?”

“As long as you’ll have me.” Cloud promised.

Sephiroth’s apartment was high in the building. Cloud swayed and covered his mouth as the elevator whisked them up. Sephiroth pulled him a little closer to his side.

“Still motion sick as ever?” He asked softly.

“Ugh.” Cloud replied.

“You came all this way.” Sephiroth murmured, and Cloud felt his cheeks heat up.

“It’s gotten better over the years.” He insisted.

“I should hope so.” Sephiroth said, a wry smile crossing his lips. “The last time I tried to carry you somewhere you threw up.”

Cloud laughed weakly at the memory, and watched Sephiroth’s smile turn into a brief flash of a familiar grin.

He looks exhausted, Cloud’s heart said. It saw the shadows in Sephiroth’s eyes. The way he was squinting just a little at the world through weariness. The way his posture stooped out of its perfection now that no one was looking. The fact that he hadn’t tucked his silver hair hair back behind his ear properly after their desperate hug.

Cloud reached up to fix it for him.

“I brought cookies.” He murmured.

“Your mother’s?” Sephiroth asked hopefully. “The last ones you sent me were so delicious. I shared them with…” He broke off, looking startled at himself. His expression tightened in sorrow and strain. Cloud slid his hand down to tangle with Sephiroth’s fingers, squeezing his hand tightly.

“Mine, this time.” He corrected softly, allowing Sephiroth to hide for the moment. “I thought you might enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

Sephiroth swallowed hard, and Cloud knew it wasn’t from mouth watering cookies, but he pretended.

“I’ll make us tea then.” He offered softly.

“They’re chai spice cookies.” Cloud offered. “If you have something that’d pair well.”

“Of course I do.” Sephiroth said softly. “In some things at least I am my mother’s son.”

“How is Lucrecia these days?” Cloud asked.

“Busy.” Sephiroth said with a half-shrug. “I don’t see any of them much these days. It’s strange, to have you here and not worry. But these days… I truly could not care less what they thought of our friendship.”

“I’d still like to make a good first impression.” Cloud said with a soft chuckle, pressing closer to Sephiroth’s side.

The only touch of color in Sephiroth’s apartment, aside from what looked like a couple pieces of motel art, was a faded drawing of two boys and the clumsily written words ‘Best Friends’ hanging on his fridge. Cloud had flushed bright pink the moment he saw it, but had told Sephiroth just as readily that he’d kept all of his pictures too.

They ate cookies. They ate a lot of cookies. Like they were young again, in their clearing, filling silences with sweets. There was so much to say. It was so hard to say any of it. Sephiroth held Cloud’s hand, sitting at his table in his strangely soulless apartment.

“We should make origami again.” Cloud said softly. “It would look great hanging from this ceiling with all this slick modern stuff. Maybe some fairy lights.”

“Decorating isn’t exactly on my to do list.” Sephiroth said, though he didn't say it unkindly.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud said into the silence that followed, before he could lose his nerve. “What… What happened? It seemed like things were going alright.”

“They were.” Sephiroth agreed. “Angeal’s student was coming along well, the war was finally fading from everyone’s hearts and minds, and then…”

He gave a strained smile that looked like it was breaking him at the edges.

“There was an accident.” He said weakly.

Cloud pushed another cookie into his hands, and listened to the whole miserable story. Sephiroth wounding his friend by accident. Not being permitted to offer help even in the form of his own blood. Watching him leave and Angeal follow...

“So,” Cloud said slowly when Sephiroth trailed off into silence. “What… Do we do?”

“You stay the hell away from them is what you do.” Sephiroth said at once, his voice dark and his brows pulling down and together, a little snarl crossing his face. “Genesis has been splicing his DNA into people. Turning them into clones of him. Feeding on what they have to offer to keep himself from falling apart. Leaving them empty of everything but destruction. I’m not even pleased with you being here in the building with him holding such a terrible grudge.”

“But he’s your friend.” Cloud said, shaking his head. “And he’s sick. Everything you’ve said about him, you’ve talked about how soulful he was. How much he wanted to be a hero. This doesn’t sound like him at all. Not to mention Angeal…”

“Oh please let’s not mention Angeal.” Sephiroth murmured, putting his head in his hands at the table.

Cloud was silent a moment, reaching over carefully to rub his hand up and down Sephiroth’s spine through the heavy leather of his jacket.

“Did I write to you about what Vincent told me?” Sephiroth asked eventually.

“You mainly only told me nice things.” Cloud said. “Tell me now, Sephiroth. You aren’t alone.”

Sephiroth’s hand stretched out. Squeezed Cloud’s knee under the table for comfort and stability.

“I asked him after Genesis started degrading. Why they wouldn’t let me donate blood when I know we are the same blood type. He was having a bad day, I think. The demons are worse some days than others you know. But he always was more open about the past than the others. That’s why I asked him in the first place.”

He took a drink of his tea like he wished it was vodka. His eyes closed, wearily. He looked worn. Exhausted. Small, for all that he was solid muscle and a full foot taller than Cloud.

“They were like me because all three of us are experiments.” He murmured. “Only Lucrecia and Hojo made me, and Hollander and a woman named Gillian made them. Vincent said Lucrecia and Hojo were better scientists. Or luckier ones. That that was the only real difference. The only reason they degraded while I remained.”

Cloud was silent a moment, watching Sephiroth.

“So,” He said slowly. “Like. Test tube, or—”

It worked. Sephiroth cracked a smile. Huffed out a small breath.

“Not unless I have seen some severely doctored images of my mother, no.”

“Okay. So that’s something.”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth said, “I am glad you are here. I have missed you. I am sorry to only have such heavy thoughts for you. You deserve much more than that.”

“I came here because I knew you’d be having a hard time.” Cloud said, itching at his palm. “I want to help. You know that Sephiroth.”

Sephiroth’s eyes were drawn to his hand, and Cloud realized too late what he was doing. Sephiroth glanced up to him, worry in his eyes, and Cloud shook his head to negate it.

“It’s okay.” He said softly, extending his hand. “Only a little strange.”

Sephiroth took his hand in both of his, carefully straightening his fingers. Cloud watched him inspect the unique scar tissue.

“This is my doing.” He said softly. “I understand better now what mother was saying. Why she didn’t want me to do things like this. Cloud, you have some of my genetic structure in you. It may even have influenced your thinking, have caused you to—”

“Don’t you dare.” Cloud snapped, glaring at Sephiroth.

The man went silent, glancing up to Cloud uncertainty.

“Don’t you dare pretend for a moment that I am here for any reason but that I want to be here for you.” Cloud said softly.

Sephiroth swallowed.

“Hojo wants to do this on purpose.” He whispered. “En masse. To give me my own army of clones. I don’t… When he started talking about it, all I could think about was healing your arm that first day. Was whether or not I’d just… Just brainwashed you.”

“That’s horrible!” Cloud objected.

“I know, I—”

“How could you think that of me?” Cloud asked, shoving Sephiroth’s shoulder lightly. The man didn’t even move, only looked to Cloud in confusion. “Here I am, thinking we’ve been best friends for years, and you’ve been wondering if I’m some poor brainwashed victim in our friendship? That’s cold, Sephiroth. I’ve missed you because you were gone. I’ve missed you because I adore you. I’ve missed you because you were the best friend in the world to me. If your genes or whatever agree with me, then that’s fine. But don’t take our friendship away from me. Please.”

Sephiroth swallowed, then nodded. He looked down at the table, releasing Cloud’s hand slowly.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured. “I’m... Afraid." He closed his eyes rather than forcing himself to look at Cloud while he spoke. "They left me here, Cloud. They took my Soldiers, and they left me here. They’ve sent monsters, and killer clones, and I think Genesis wants me dead. I’m just… I’m waiting for you to turn on me too, I suppose. I almost want you to go ahead and get it over with.”

“You are just as dramatic as you were at fourteen, you know that?” Cloud said softly.

Sephiroth’s lips only barely twitched upwards.

Cloud let the silence fall between them. He lay his hand on the table, palm up. He was gratified in his choice when Sephiroth opened his eyes, lifted a gloved finger, and started carefully tracing the lines of the hexagon patterns on his skin.

“For the record,” Cloud said softly, “I love it. Best blood oath ever.”

They sat there for a long while. Sephiroth’s phone went off a few times, but he always only checked it and set it aside again. Cloud waited, watching him piece himself back together. Wishing they were in the grass, in the sunshine. Wishing…

“Can you heal them?” He asked into the long silence.

“I can’t.” Sephiroth muttered. “I was never really healing you, Cloud. I was just… Just patching you up with pieces of myself.”

“Well,” Cloud said after a long moment. “It does sound kind of like they could use a patch job. They’re like you, right? Like you but not as well made. Maybe… The material could still be transferable?”

Sephiroth sat still a long moment. Then he said, very softly, “Hm.”

* * *

“I’m coming.” Cloud told him.

“To Modeoheim? No. Too dangerous.”

“I can help you.”

“You could get killed. Absolutely not.”

“If it doesn’t work—”

“If it doesn’t work then I will do what I intended to do before your idea and simply fail to eliminate him.”

“Simply.” Cloud muttered. “Look, just… Don’t get hurt.”

Sephiroth gave him a small smile, and Cloud watched him walk out across the roof and board the helicopter.

"Sooo," drawled the red-headed Turk who'd been watching. "You two, uh... Close?"

"Bite me." Cloud snapped back, turning and stalking away. "Silver elite scum."

The Turk's startled laughter followed him.

* * *

When Cloud returned to Nibelheim, it was with a guest he’d picked up along the way. A strange and quiet man who bore a striking resemblance to a dead Soldier, except for the streaks of silver in his hair, the green flecks in his eyes, and the strange hexagon scars on either side of his face where Sephiroth had held his cheeks to heal him.

“So you’re Cloud.” He’d said when Cloud met him at last, exactly where Sephiroth had told him he would be. “He talked about you all the time.”

“Hi, Angeal.” Cloud had said. “He wrote a lot about you too.”

Angeal, it turned out, knew a lot about baking, and more about gardening. He moved into the house with Cloud and his mother with an apology to her for the intrusion, and a whole-hearted assurance that he would do his best to be of use.

Within a few weeks he was invaluable. And what was more, he seemed happy. Cloud wrote to Sephiroth about him. Used the codename they’d picked out.

The Big Dog was doing just fine. Which immediately added Cloud to the pen-pal list of a certain Soldier First Class Zack Fair.

The phone at the bakery rang a few weeks later, and Cloud’s mother gestured to him after she answered it.

“He sounds handsome.” She sing-songed, and Cloud flushed instantly. Angeal’s low laugh caught him as he pressed his ear to the phone.

“Hello?” He murmured, not willing to risk being wrong about who was on the other end.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth’s voice was not affectionate or slow. It was strained. Business like. “Are you safe?”

“What? Yeah. I’m at the bakery with mom and Big Dog.”

“I’m right here, you can use my name.”

“Genesis is somewhere in your area,” Sephiroth was speaking quickly. Cloud could tell he was moving. “I’m being sent there to ‘handle’ it. And what’s worse, my parents are coming. To ‘revisit the old house.’”

“That’s good, right?” Cloud said. “We’ve been trying to get a bead on his location for weeks now!”

“It’s not good if he murders everyone there before I get to him.” Sephiroth said. “Stay safe, and stay away from the reactor. I’ll be there in the morning.”

“That fast?” Cloud breathed, feeling his heart racing.

Sephiroth hesitated, then gave a soft, warm chuckle.

“I will take the time to make it a proper visit if I can.” He promised.

When he hung up, Cloud caught Angeal up to speed. He had to physically hold him back from going up to the reactor right away.

“We can’t risk it!” He said, digging his heels in and shoving back against Angeal's chest. “Not even to try and talk him down. You know that, Angeal. You know that better than anyone. He’s not thinking rationally right now.”

Angeal was tense a moment, then let out a breath, lowering his head quietly.

“Only till the morning.” Cloud reassured his new friend and himself both, trying to teach his impatient heart patience.

The scar on his hand burned with the desire to go to Sephiroth’s side, and he told it to hush as firmly as he could.

He was waiting at the gate when the transport rolled up. He split into a smile the moment he saw it. Especially when the passenger side door opened while it was still in motion, and a familiar figure vaulted over the still-moving truck to reach him faster.

Sephiroth’s hug was a homecoming. Though it had only been weeks and not years this time, Cloud’s whole being throbbed with the feeling of it.

“It’s been too long.” Cloud sighed aloud, holding tight to Sephiroth.

“It’s been two weeks.” Sephiroth said, though he was no better, nuzzling against Cloud’s hair greedily.

“Ah,” said Angeal with a frightening amount of clarity. Cloud flushed instantly, but didn’t pull away, only turning closer into Sephiroth’s hold.

“Welcome home.” Cloud whispered.

“Dirt pile sweet dirt pile.” Sephiroth muttered. “I have missed it terribly.”

He didn’t even sound sarcastic.

Someone cleared their throats nearby, and Cloud glanced to Angeal first, but the man was only halfway smiling.

He glanced over instead to the three people watching them with narrowed eyes. Watching _him_ with narrowed eyes.

“Somehow the dead Soldier standing in the gateway is the least surprising thing to greet us.” The one who must have been Hojo said.

“Ah.” Said Vincent from behind his cowl, and Cloud thought he saw Sephiroth's favorite father smile in quiet approval.

Sephiroth’s mother folded her arms and stared at them fixedly.

“Um.” Said Cloud.

“I did mention my parents were coming.” Sephiroth said in instant self defense.

“You could have backed me up.” Cloud muttered, kicking Sephiroth’s leg lightly. If he’d kicked it hard he only would have bruised himself. “You know I wanted to make a good first impression.”

“You always make a good first impression.” Sephiroth said warmly.

That time Cloud was certain he heard a snort of laughter from behind the red cowl, and Vincent had to turn away. He patted Lucrecia on the shoulder twice, moving to gather their things from the transport.

“Well?” Lucrecia said in the silence, her voice sharp and her greying hair still in that distinctive style Cloud remembered Sephiroth drawing all those years ago.

“Mother, this is Cloud Strife, my best friend since we were children.” Sephiroth said mildly. “Cloud, this is my mother Lucrecia, and those are Hojo and Vincent.”

“Nice to finally meet you.” Cloud said. “Your son broke out and went on adventures with me literally all the time while you all were busy arguing with each other and ignoring him.”

The shocked blink that Sephiroth gave him was echoed by another sound of amusement from Vincent.

“I like him.” Vincent proclaimed, returning with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Well I knew you would, Turk.” Sephiroth said with a playful derision that didn’t strike Cloud as exactly how one would talk to a father, but then Vincent wasn’t exactly a normal father.

He wondered if it had to do with the fact that though Vincent must have been twice their age from what he’d heard he still looked as young as Sephiroth. Demons, his delirious brain thought. They keep you fresh.

“We’ll talk about this later.” Lucrecia said to Sephiroth.

“I don’t think so.” Sephiroth replied. “Aren’t you three just here to revisit old times and tear each other’s throats out in the mansion? Or is it tear each other's clothes off, I never can keep it straight. Either way, Cloud and I have work to do.”

This time Hojo laughed, and Cloud restrained a shudder at the sound of it.

“Sephiroth.” Lucrecia scolded, though she was looking dangerously amused as well.

“Cloud, update me?” Sephiroth was saying, sliding an arm around Cloud’s shoulders.

“Bridge is out, just like you asked. Cut it this morning. No one’s getting to the reactor who doesn’t know the exact layout of the Nibelheim cave system.”

“Good. How’s your knowledge of the Nibelheim cave system doing these days?”

“I’d call it exact. I’m not staying behind this time.”

“Hm.” Sephiroth glanced to his parents once more, then turned away, walking with Cloud as Angeal fell in beside them. He reached out his other hand to rest on Angeal's shoulder. "Fair enough."

* * *

Genesis was very sick. It was Cloud’s first thought, watching him carelessly cast a fire spell on Angeal. Though Angeal didn’t seem terribly surprised, or particularly hurt, Sephiroth had been. Caught off guard and miserable, in this terrible room, full of the old scent of suffering. Cloud moved without thought, that itch in his palm calling him forward at the same moment Genesis charged. Sephiroth was frozen with uncertainty.

Cloud caught the red sword though his scarred hand, the Sephiroth cells reacting to protect their creator. Relief raced through him faster than pain. That blow… It might have been bad if it had hit Sephiroth. It had been aimed at his chest.

Genesis turned wild eyes to him, shocked and furious at the interruption. But before he could object, Sephiroth’s hands were upon him, bare and gentle and inexorable.

Cloud watched for the first time in a long time as Sephiroth healed a wound. The cracks in Genesis’s face filled in with familiar hexagons as he screamed.

When it was over, they sat in the reactor, Sephiroth collapsed with his head in Cloud’s lap, accepting small bites of the dumbapple that was all Genesis had saved of his hometown in his delirium.

But even through his exhausted haze, Cloud felt Sepirhoth’s hand wrap around his injured palm. His ruined skin knit closed in a burst of welcome heat.

* * *

It is not an easy thing to reconcile, when a sickness causes harm. Genesis and Angeal had a great deal to process. To think on. Sephiroth asked them to stay in Nibelheim a while to think on it. Offered them use of his parent’s mansion. Without their permission, but Cloud had realized by now that the boy afraid of his parent’s actions was long gone.

“Is this the mansion where you pined for your Cloud?” Genesis had asked, exhausted and wry, but witty again. Clever and sharp instead of simply tragic and cruel. “Healing him through fences and waiting for his company?”

“Learning to fly so you could draw with him?” Angeal added, grinning.

“Oh my god, you told them that?” Cloud asked.

“Don’t stop them now, it’s only getting interesting.” Vincent commented, and Cloud’s mother laughed and handed him another pastry.

Cloud couldn’t help but notice that Vincent had gotten three more of his mother's baked goods than the obviously frustrated Lucrecia. And definitely more than the conspicuously absent Hojo.

“Like you didn’t know I was sneaking out.” Sephiroth snorted.

“Of course I knew." Vincent said with a half-shrug. "I thought you were doing perfectly respectable childhood things. Finding a good creek to splash in, endangering yourself with wild animals. I’d have called it to a halt at once if I knew you’d been falling in love. It’s a terrible business.”

“Falling in love?" Cloud muttered. "That’s a strong way to put it."

Genesis laughed at him, and the motion made the still-healing scars near his lips crack and bleed. Angeal pressed his handkerchief to the scabs gently, still well remembering his own wounds and glad to have someone to look after.

“I think not.” Genesis scoffed, unphased.

Cloud glanced to Sephiroth, flushing, waiting for him to argue. But Sephiroth was only looking at him with a small smile. When he leaned down to kiss him, it was with one hell of an audience, in two of his parents, one of Cloud’s, and both of Sephiroth’s other best friends.

“Cloud Strife." He whispered when he pulled away. “How have you managed yet again to make my life worth living?”

Cloud didn’t answer. He was too busy dragging Sephiroth down into another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Star Wars AU


	20. A Star Wars Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been years since Sephiroth saw his ex-padawan Cloud. This isn't the reunion he hoped for, of course. Hunting down Zack to see why he abandoned the Jedi order. Though Sephiroth thinks he knows.
> 
> It wouldn't be so bad if not for how different Cloud is. And how ready he seems to turn to violence. Against _Zack_ of all people.

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Cloud kept reaching for his padawan braid. Sephiroth hid a smile every time, watching him reach up to touch the braid only to find the long hair unbraided and carefully tucked behind his ear. He hadn’t cut it back to the length of his bangs, but it also hadn’t grown long enough to join the long hair tied at the back of his neck.

It was a habit that would break quickly. A twitch that was a marker of this moment in his life. This fleeting time while he was still new to his rank as a knight of the Jedi order. Sephiroth watched his friend reach for the ghost of his braid, and his fingers find only loose hair. Watched his digits twitch in brief alarm. Did I forget to braid it, Sephiroth could read the motion’s thought. Then he would slide his fingers down around the loose hair slowly, trying to play it off quietly. Trying to look like it was natural to be a knight rather than a padawan.

It would not last long. Sephiroth treasured the moments all the more for their impermanence. For the already-nostalgic feel of them. The softness of the present, as he watched Cloud struggle in the smallest, quietest way with his new life. Until now he’d only caught glimpses of the motion. With Cloud at his side again, he was intimately aware of it. Of all the shifts in his body. Even the sound of his breathing.

It was almost enough to let him imagine everything was alright.

“I’m glad to finally work beside you, young master Cloud.” Sephiroth murmured, standing at Cloud’s side as the lift drew them up closer and closer to the ship.

“Would that it were under better circumstances, master.” Cloud said softly. “That is, uhm, master Sephiroth?”

“Just Sephiroth will do fine.” Sephiroth glanced over, watching the man shifting on his feet beside him. “You’re my equal now.”

“Hardly.” Cloud scoffed, though his miserable expression cleared a little, and the suffocating sorrow between the two of them lifted.

“Something troubles you.” Sephiroth said mildly, turning forward again.

“Of course something does.” Cloud hissed. “Zack left. Our Zack. He just… And now we’re going after him, and…”

“And we’ll check in.” Sephiroth said mildly. “To see how he’s doing and whether he needs help.”

“Those aren’t our orders.”

“He’s our friend.” Sephiroth said softly. “That’s why they’re sending us. To reason with him. This will not become a search and destroy, Cloud. Breathe.”

“What if he’s gotten overtaken?” Cloud muttered, forcing his hands down. One tucked under his robe anxiously, griping it on the inside. The other rested over the lightsaber at his hip. “What if the call of the dark side was too much or him?”

“For Zack?” Sephiroth asked, arching an eyebrow and glancing down to Cloud as their lift arrived at last at the hangar they’d be flying out from. “You have not forgotten him so thoroughly, I hope, to believe that was ever a possibility.”

“It’s a possibility for anyone.” Cloud insisted. “The grand masters say no one is immune to the lure of the dark side.”

“The grand masters say a good many things.” Sephiroth led the way to the ship, his robe waving behind him as he walked. “May I tell you what I have found in my years with the temple?”

“Always.” Cloud said, stepping up next to the ship as Sephiroth waved a hand, calling down its ramp, opening its curving glass doors.

“I think,” Sephiroth said, “that you and the grand masters worry far too much about the force, and far too little about people. Of course the Sith are frightening, and of course they must be stopped. But all the harm the two of them do, wherever they are, it is nothing compared to the actions of a thousand ordinary people. Whether those actions be cruel or kind. Whether they be dark or light or, far more likely, grey.”

“Do you not hate them then?” Cloud asked, and it made Sephiroth’s heartache to hear the suspicion in his voice. “The Sith?”

“As readily as any Jedi should hate, I suppose.” Sephiroth said. “I am not saying it is wrong to oppose them. I am trying to tell you , Cloud, that it is all more complex than Jedi and Sith. Than dark and light. It is only individuals. It is only their triumphs and their failings. Their generosity and their selfishness. I do not think we have anything to fear from Zackary. He has always been, in the grand scheme of things, a being much given to generosity.”

He stepped up into the small bridge of their two-man ship, only just barely robust enough to be capable of the journey. Sephiroth could have requested some of the council’s fancier new ships, but he did not like them.

A Jedi, in his opinion, should not be flying in luxury model ships.

“Now,” Sephiroth said, spreading his hands and stepping back slightly, “if I remember well, you quite like to fly. Does that still hold true young master Cloud.”

“Oh,” Cloud fidgeted. Toyed with his cape. What had his most recent teachers been telling him, Sephiroth wondered. He fought not to let his smile give way under the stress of seeing the bright young man so dampened. “I’m not supposed to, um… Play around. It’s a big mission…”

“We have to fly there as it is,” Sephiroth said mildly. “Do you think the universe will be better for you having deprived yourself of a simple pleasure that is also a necessity?”

“Master Tseng says I am too given to flights of fancy.”

“Master Tseng travels with a cadre of force-weak children he trains to be agents of espionage.” Sephiroth pointed out, arching an eyebrow. “There was a time you would gladly take the chance for some happiness Cloud. Does it perhaps displease you to be here with me? I can assure you—”

“No,” Cloud said quickly. “No. Nothing like that. Maybe I’m… Feeling guilty? That I’m looking forward to it. To spending time with you. Maybe I feel bad that I hope you’re right, and the council is wrong, and there won’t be a fight.”

There was something else weighing on him. He could sense it. But Sephiroth accepted his answer with a nod.

“I can only assure you that I am glad as well,” Sephiroth said, laying a hand briefly on Cloud’s shoulder. “Now. Will you insist that I fly us about like an old man rather than letting both of us enjoy your admitted skill in flight? I will accept whatever answer you give.”

Cloud was silent a moment, then smiled warmly. He cracked his knuckles, and Sephiroth laughed softly, feeling the band around his heart loosen at the sight of Cloud’s more honest smile.

He wished he could have stayed Cloud’s master. Wished he could have taught him the truth of the force the whole time. But now time was drawing close. And he had lost Cloud to the Council long ago by being too incautious.

* * *

“Your attachment has been noted.” Master Bugenhagen had warned, that constant smile on his face, floating on his orb through the halls.

“Attachment?” Sephiroth asked with a scoff. “Master, I mean no disrespect, but I was raised in this temple. I know better than to bind myself to any physical thing. I am a conduit for the force’s light, and its hand in the universe.”

“Prettily practiced lines.” Bugenhagen said, nodding along. “You have a way with words. Your deceit will make them doubt you sooner than your acceptance would, Sephiroth. Think of the young man. His fate is tied with yours so long as he remains your padawan.”

“You speak of Cloud?”

“My boy, you make an art of acting foolish,” The old man laughed. “But you know as well as I do. You know the curve of the feeling in your chest as well as you know the hilt of your saber. You know the sound of his laugh now better than the sound of the worlds moving in their orbits. Your heart when you meditate reaches not for the force, but for him. Love is not a thing to be killed or shamed, but you are a Jedi knight. We are not made for lovers, my boy, and refusing or denying your feelings will lead to nothing but bitterness. You must let go.”

So Sephiroth had relinquished Cloud. Had never given him a full explanation. A full apology. Easier for Cloud to be confused and hurt than to tempt him with what could not be.

Only as the years passed…

As the years passed, he wondered.

* * *

Cloud was an excellent pilot. That much hadn’t changed. He had the touch for it. The attention. He maneuvered them out of the immediate orbit of the planet pleasantly while Sephiroth leaned back in his chair, watching the ships out the windows, the stars hovering above around them, the darkness of every place that was not a star or a planet.

“Coordinates plugged in,” Cloud commented. “I’m going to make the jump, okay?”

“Give it a moment more.” Sephiroth murmured, his eyes drifting down to the planet. “If you would indulge me. I would like to watch for a moment.”

Cloud sat back, watching the distant planet. The ships coming and going to the trade federation, the cities indecipherable structures from so far away, only a smattering of light on the distant planets surface.

“Do you sense them all?” Sephiroth asked softly. “All the people down there?”

“I can tell they’re there,” Cloud said after a moment. “But we both know I’ll never be as strong as you are.”

Sephiroth scoffed, shaking his head.

“You really have forgotten what I tried to teach you.” He murmured, standing to lean against the cockpit, staring down at the planet, feeling all the lives down there, moving around on the planet under his attention, like droplets of water under a wind. Indifferent, but acknowledged.

“Sephiroth. It’s just the truth. Your Midi-chlorian count is off the charts. You’re the most force sensitive person to ever—”

“Midi-chlorians,” Sephiroth scoffed. “I think you might believe them if they told you your blondeness made you a more likely Sith.”

“What?” Squeaked Cloud, lifting his hand to his hair.

“That was clearly hyperbole and you know it.” Sephiroth scolded, smiling softly when Cloud snorted at him, grinning. “Cloud, I am serious about this. My control of the force is no stronger or weaker than yours based on a number in my blood. The force is breathing. I may breathe more deeply some days. May technically inahle more air than you. Does that make me better than you? Does it mean the air is mine more than it is yours?”

“I thought we were going to be equals on this,” Cloud said, standing to join him at the window, “and here you are lecturing me.”

“Close your eyes.” Sephiroth instructed with a fond chuckle. “Just for a moment, Cloud. Focus on the planet. Let go of thoughts of inadequacy and ineptitude. Only listen to what the universe tells you.”

“What am I looking for?” Cloud asked, his eyes already closed as he followed Sephiroth’s instructions.

“You are not looking for anything,” Sephiroth murmured, watching Cloud’s expression. Feeling the questing presence, cautiously reaching out. “The force is more than a means to an end. It is never a bad time to feel the world around you. It is never a bad time to remember what you are here for.”

Please remember, he thought to himself. He masked his own emotion by guiding the flow of Cloud’s curiosity around him and back down towards the world. Please remember, before all is too late.

* * *

“Is this because I kissed you?” Cloud had asked from his doorway, heartbroken and wounded so deeply that Sephiroth could feel it rolling off him in waves. He had felt deaths less painful.

“It is not because of anything you have done wrong.” Sephiroth said at the time, staring into the pool at the center of his room where they had spent many evenings meditating together. “Like many things, it simply is, Cloud.”

“I’m sorry.” Cloud whispered. “Please, Sephiroth…”

They did not speak again after that. Not for years. Not until Cloud’s padawan braid was undone, and he was there at the council meetings, twitchy and uncertain.

But Sephiroth had felt him, all through those long days. Had felt that fragile broken heart mend itself on scraps. And he had thought about what it meant to be unattached. And he had thought about the harm he would do if he loved someone. The danger it would bring.

He thought of the damage he wanted to do every time he felt Cloud’s presence cautiously reaching out to him as if looking for help.

* * *

Zack had not gone far, in the grand scheme of things. The jump was short. Cloud seemed to expect to spend the time in meditation or some other serious pursuit. Sephiroth had drawn him into conversation instead. Had pulled stories from him of his training. Small and light thoughts and tales.

He offered his own adventures, because Cloud had always liked them. The monsters he had slayed to save cities. The rebels he had tracked down, thwarting their vicious attempts at sabotage and destruction. He told him of guard duty inside the trade federation, and long long boring hours beside Shinra.

“I believe that is why they teach meditation.” Sephiroth said mildly. “Simply so one become so used to boredom that one does not object to being placed with a beaurocrat.”

Cloud had laughed, but he had looked like he felt guilty for laughing.

Still, slowly the conversation opened him up, his smile growing, and his enthusiasm with it. They exchanged lightsabers, looking over each other’s blades carefully. Cloud let out a breath when he summoned the blade from Sephiroth’s to find it no longer than his own was.

“So that’s just you, huh?” He asked. “That long blade. It’s just the force in you.”

“I already told you on this flight,” Sephiroth chuckled. “The force is not inside me, Cloud. It is not in Midi-chlorians. Consider them more a symptom. They feed where the force is present, so they make a good meal within me. I have been channeling the force a long time. They are not a predestination. They are only a benign infection.”

“That’s not what the masters say.” Cloud said hesitantly.

“There may be some things even the masters would like to delude themselves about, young master Cloud.” Sephiroth said. “You would be wise to consider no one infallible or incorruptible.”

He had very much hoped Cloud would pick up much more on the implications of his being Shinra’s body guard, and much less on the implication of his lightsaber’s length.

When they arrived, he was disappointed to see their calm conversation end. At once Cloud’s barriers went up. At once he was tense and flighty again, his hand resting over his saber.

“Do not draw that unless forced to.” Sephiroth instructed him. “Do you understand? Even if Zack is beyond hope, which I still strongly doubt, this is a peaceful planet. I would not bring violence with us. We are Jedi are we not? And ambassadors of peace therefore.”

Cloud swallowed hard and nodded, forcing his hand off his blade.

Sephiroth turned from him as he retook the manual controls. He let Cloud handle the steering, and closed his eyes, extending a hand. He didn’t need to extend his hand, but it told Cloud what he was doing. It was a form of communication, to show one’s intent while channeling.

The force twined strong around and through the planet. It was ingrained in the very stones, and Sephiroth smiled at the feeling of it. It was an old and easy power here, not intentional and structured, but cultivated slowly over generations. It rose to meet him, washed over him. At his curious touch a hundred force sensitives looked to the skies.

One of them Sephiroth recognized.

“Hey, Seph.” Zack said, as if he were in the room with him. Cloud did not respond, So Sephiroth knew not to speak his reply aloud.

“Zack,” He greeted warmly. “May we see you?”

“If I say no will you blow up my house?”

“Certainly not. I will say I could not find you, for your powers were too great for me. You always were the better of us at this.”

“Don’t flatter me, you know I’m weak to it.” Zack was laughing, and Sephiroth smiled to remember the sound of it, the feel of it. “I’m here. Come on down. There’s room to land in the foothills near home.”

“My thanks, old friend.”

“Well, I expected a war party. So I’m pretty glad to see you too buddy.”

“That way, if you would Cloud.” Sephiroth said, gesturing to their port side. “He let me find him. So I do not think we will have any difficulty.”

“Is he okay?” Cloud asked softly, uncertainty.

“He seems afraid of us and what we represent.” Sephiroth said honestly. “He has something here he wishes to protect. He is happy. Be patient and kind, Cloud. He is still the man you called friend.”

“He left, though.” Cloud murmured.

“Just because we are told to stay does not mean it is always wrong to leave.” Sephiroth said after a long moment. “Which do you think is better, Cloud? A free man with a Jedi's skill and patience, or a bitter man hiding under the title of Jedi?”

“I mean,” Cloud said slowly, “the teachings tell us how to set aside bitterness.”

“And the ones who are not Jedi?” Sephiroth asked a moment later at the non-answer. “All the many force-sensitives, who may yet be recruited to the dark side. What do you think their place in this is?”

“It would be good if there could be temples everywhere for them.” Cloud recited. “Where they could learn to control their wants and desires.”

Sephiroth did not reply. It would have come out bitter with disappointment. He breathed slowly through it, and did not think of the families he’d been sent to rip apart for the sake of training children with a particularly high infection in their bloods, hungry for the force that they channeled.

He is still new, he told himself, glancing at Cloud from the corner of his eye. He is still young. At his age you believed it all too. You believed it all for so, so long.

* * *

They landed in the foothills, as they’d been instructed. Before the doors were even open Sephiroth saw the strapping figure of his friend cresting the hill. Not alone, he noted. A Twi’lek woman was with him. Not just near, but beside. It was not a causal togetherness. Her back was straight and proud, and she stood close to Zack’s side. It was brave, Sephiroth thought, feeling her fear. She was very brave.

He did not use the force to open their ship. He used only the mechanical systems. He caught Cloud’s hand, gently.

“Be kind.” He warned again. “The woman fears for Zack, and she fears what we will do. Protect her with your kindness. Do you understand me?”

“Why would she fear us?” Cloud asked. "We're Jedi."

Sephiroth only shook his head. He considered a moment, then made a show of removing his belt and saber. Cloud gaped at him, watching him remove his only weapon. Sephiroth did not comment on his choice. He only set his beloved saber reverently down at the side of the ship’s door and turned to walk down the ramp. The ground below them was soft. He could feel its fertility through the force. How ready it was to grow. It was also a bright shade of pink that instantly stained his brown boots. He was charmed at once, and smiled to see it.

Zack was close enough for Sephiroth to catch the musical edges of his voice as he spoke to the woman beside him. Close enough that Sephiroth could appreciate how free he looked without his brown robes weighing him down. He was dressed simply, his dark clothes stained pink too from time out in the soil. The woman watched him cautiously. Her tendrils--he remembered hearing them called Lekku-- she held twined together behind her head, sliding down her back. A defensive posture. One worn by a woman who knew her weaknesses and knew what an enemy could do with a quick and painful grip.

Sephiroth watched Zack lay his hand familiarly on her lower back, close to the sensitive, coiled tentacles. The Twi’lek did not finch. Her trust of him was implicit. Sephiroth smiled to see it, feeling himself soften instantly to what he knew Zack had found here.

“My friend.” He called, stepping away from the ship in easy motions, keeping his hands in view, palm out. He did not approach quickly. Zack did. He broke from the woman’s side with a glance and a smile of request. Then he sprinted forward and flung himself into Sephiroth’s arms.

“Sephiroth,” Zack said, his voice low, for Sephiroth’s ears only, “I will not let you take me from here.”

“Zack,” Sephiroth whispered, hugging him tight in return, “I came here with every intention to fail in that. My dedication to failure redoubles at the sight of your reason to be here. Congratulations, my friend. However, there is one complication.”

He pushed Zack’s attention to Cloud, and felt the man’s breath hitch in worry against him. So Sephiroth wasn’t the only one worried by what voices Cloud had been hearing recently.

“Spike!” Zack cried. His voice reflected only delight, and none of the fear Sephiroth could feel boiling inside him as he held his hands out to Cloud.

Sephiroth felt Cloud’s resistance. His frustration and sorrow. But Zack was patient, and soon Cloud had pressed into his hug, clinging to him greedily. Sephiroth could feel Cloud's anger. Born, as always, from his confusion. He also felt it quiet as Zack whispered something to him. Some reassurance, or promise of explanation, Sephiroth was sure.

His eyes went to the woman. She was standing nearby, the only one of them armed. Her staff she held at her side. Her eyes were green and bright, her skin a wonder of pink and brown that matched the earth of this world. She wore brown clothes that, when stained as they were, complimented her earth-toned skin. Her gaze cut to Sephiroth, catching him inspecting her. He bowed to her, quietly, and did not blame her when she did not return the gesture. She wore a ribbon around her throat, with a stone threaded through it. Sephiroth sensed its power, and promptly pushed it from his mind.

It was not his business.

“Will you introduce us, Zack?” Sephiroth asked softly, drawing Zack from whatever he was communicating to Cloud in their desperate hug.

“Sorry,” Zack said instantly, pulling back with one more squeeze. “Sephiroth, Cloud, this is Aerith. Aerith, these are Sephiroth and Cloud, the ones I’ve told you about.”

“I do wish all of your friends from your last life weren’t Jedi scum, you know.” Aerith said to Zack, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Sephiroth felt that he liked her instantly. Her sharp teeth that made her spoken Galactic Basic lisp slightly. They were not words made for sharp teeth and soft tongues like Twi’leki was. He put a hand to Cloud’s chest to restrain his temper, tapping him gently before he could object. He only nodded to the woman, elegant and slight.

“We will not impose on you long.” He said.

“Long enough to try stealing my Zack away.” She said, low and dangerous. It left no doubt about what she would do if they tried.

“We have no such intention.” Sephiroth said softly. “I came only because my friend vanished, and I wished to know why. We will stay only a short while, so we may formulate together what to tell the council. You will hardly be the first Jedi to retire to hermitude, or whatever end you choose for yourself.”

Zack laughed, warm and light.

“I don’t think anyone would buy me as a hermit.” He said warmly before turning to Aerith. "We can trust them, my love. I promise. Will you permit me to have them as my guests for a short while? If not, I can simply talk with them on their ship. I will keep our house free of Jedi if you wish it of me.”

“Our house is never free of Jedi influence." The woman sighed. "I brought you inside myself. Bring them if you must, Zack. But do not trust them.”

Zack kissed her softly in thanks. Sephiroth heard Cloud suck in a quiet breath. He himself only averted his eyes to give them some privacy and waited and waited, feeling something warm coil in his chest. Zack deserved this. This feeling shifting the force in the very planet’s blood. This utter adoration.

* * *

Sephiroth knew already why Aerith hated and feared them. He could sense it in her clear as day. The impossible ease with which she moved within the force. The way it clung lovingly to her that had nothing to do with mystical understanding of the universe, and everything to do with a woman who was deeply connected.

The Jedi would have found her young, with her power radiating like this. They would have tried to take her.

Sephiroth thought of sobbing mothers clinging to their children, and did not even try to excuse himself, or his temple, or their actions. Did not try to apologize either. It would have been an empty thing from a man who once would have been the one to snatch her from her parent’s arms. Been the one to teach her to guard her Lekku rather than to use them for the easy and soulful communication of her people.

It was the most he could do not to frighten her further, so he did his very best. She stood against the wall, watching, while Zack showed them to their low earthen table and poured them drinks. Sephiroth looked down curiously into the glass. He might have abstained except that Cloud looked ready to make a point of not drinking an enemies beverage.

So Sephiroth drank deep and long from the mug, and came up clearing his throat as he accustomed himself to the strange taste. Zack was beaming at him, and he had the woman’s attention now. Not entirely hateful, it seemed. He would count that as a win.

“So how much trouble am I in?” Zack asked, leaning an elbow on the table.

“You know how they are,” Sephiroth said, “you sneeze too loudly in a council meeting and it’s a mark the dark side is strong with you. They think you’re a threat.”

“What do you think?” Zack asked.

“I think you’re in love.” Sephiroth said mildly, fiddling with his mug, considering whether he had the mental fortitude to drink from it again. “And that I believe you should have that choice, just as you chose to join the order when you were younger.”

“Was coerced to join the order.” Aerith corrected, her voice grim and angry.

“We don’t—” Cloud started, instantly rising to her anger.

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said firmly. “Do not silence a lady in her own home. Instead listen with an open mind, and learn if you can.”

“This isn’t what we were sent for.” Cloud argued.

“No.” Sephiroth said. “It is better than what we were sent for. You are welcome to wait in the ship if you cannot be a civil guest.”

He saw the hurt in Cloud’s gaze, and reached out to carefully place a hand on his arm, a familiar, soothing gesture.

“You are still new.” He said softly. “There are things you do not know, and things they do not wish you to know. Be patient.”

Cloud did not go back to the ship. He did take a petulant sip of the drink and nearly choke on it. Aerith’s smirk did not go unnoticed.

Zack, in his easy way, turned the conversation to softer things. Insisted on catching them up to speed, since they would be there for days. Told them of the plants he was learning to grow. How they were the livestock of this world. How they moved like beasts, but their stalks, their vines, tethered them to the ground, so as they grew they could walk further and further, circling the place where their roots anchored them.

Sephiroth watched the tension melt off Cloud by degrees. Watched each passing moment shred some of his tension and fear and anger. Watched as the same thing happened to Aerith, on the opposing side of the table. As she slowly pulled away from the wall and sat beside Zack.

Cloud pillowed his head in his arms without seeming to fully realize what he was doing. He drifted to sleep in another few units, lulled by conversation and the food Zack had offered. Infinitely more palatable than the pale pink water had been.

“I am happy for you.” Sephiroth murmured to him. “For both of you. And sorry as well.”

“You volunteered for this, huh?” Zack asked, a strained smile on his face.

“Of course. The council wanted you hunted. I will find another way than that. I give you my word.”

“You could leave too, you know.” Zack said softly. “You’ve never been happy there, Sephiroth. You know what they do.”

“I do.” Sephiroth said, glancing to Aerith. “I do.” He repeated to her, letting his internal walls fall, letting the guilt and the sorrow and the apology spill from him in ways words could never say.

“Your regrets mean nothing to the younglings who you have already taken.” She said softly. “To their parents. But I see you for what you are. Young still yourself. Like your sleeping friend. It is easy to believe you do the right thing when it is all you know.”

Sephiroth pretended not to notice her right head-tail snaking to rest against Zack’s shoulder, turning his attention instead to pushing a strand of Cloud’s hair out of his eyes.

“You may still have to run.” Sephiroth said softly. “I fear I no longer hold the sway I used to. They do not need me as they once did, with Shinra and their clones at their beck and call. In time many of us may have to run.”

“This place is Aerith’s home,” Zack said, smiling tightly, as if he were in pain. “They sent me here to tear it apart to find the origins of the force within it. Aerith stopped me, and I stayed with her. This is her planet, and her people. She is their guardian. I won’t leave her, and I won’t force her to run. I will fight if I have to.”

“I would expect no less.” Sephiroth said softly. “It is late. I think. It is for me, at least. Allow me to give you both peace for the night. We can begin planning tomorrow, if you wish Zack. Perhaps we may avoid violence a while longer yet.”

He woke Cloud gently, and walked with him back to their ship. Cloud was drifting, weary. He listed over against Sephiroth a couple of times as they walked, till Sephiroth wrapped an arm around his shoulders to steer him.

Perhaps it was selfish. Perhaps it was what he wanted rather than what was needed. He did it anyway.

* * *

“I have been searching the planet,” Sephiroth reported. “We have had no luck on our first day, but will continue. I have faith he cannot resist the pull for long.”

He closed the line shortly later, and tried to ignore the look Cloud was giving him.

“I heard them a few days ago.” Cloud said softly. “I went back to the council chambers after a meeting. They were talking about you. They think you’re starting to turn, Sephrioth.”

“Is that what your obsession with it is?” Sephiroth asked. “They have always had such concerns about me. Some wanted to have me killed as a child to spare the temple any ill-luck that might come of my power. Thus far I have proven them wrong at every step. Do you think I am losing myself to darkness, Cloud?”

“I think you don’t believe in darkness.” Cloud said after a moment. “I think you believe in people, and the things they do. And I worry about what you might think of the things that you have done. And what the people at the temple do.”

Sephiroth felt a quiet swell of pride, and left his lightsaber by the door, opening it for Cloud. They walked together to meet Zack outside and talk about their plans.

They did not have many good options. And as the days went by, Sephiroth saw Cloud becoming more afraid. Less secure. He knew to fear those emotions, but he trusted Cloud implicitly. Far too much to think of him as a threat or an enemy. A problem, perhaps, a complication, but not a threat.

* * *

There were perks and downsides to being close to the force. To letting it be in touch with you always. To feeling so deeply, so frequently.

The tendency to wake up with the terrible feeling that something was wrong could have been a perk or a downside, depending on the day. Sephiroth didn’t stop to wonder which it was when he jerked awake in the ship. He only called his lightsaber to his hand and started running towards the disturbance.

There were a great many things Sephiroth had been taught that he no longer believed. This much had not changed. He still believed the force when it spoke to him. He still believed in the strength of his legs and his instinct to have his weapon in hand.

When he arrived at the scene, he didn’t know what to think anymore. Because there was Aerith, curled around a fallen Zack, her hand up to forestall a killing blow.

And there, above her, was Cloud, lit by the green of his lightsaber. There was an anguished expression of desperation on his face.

Sephiroth was suddenly aware of all sorts of truths in that moment. Truths about who Cloud was as a person, and the fact that he didn’t actually _know_ anymore. That his knowledge was years old.

He was aware that Zack was still alive, and Aerith was still alive, and the small life beginning inside of Aerith was alive as well. He was aware that Cloud was pulling himself apart, trying to do what he thought was right.

He was aware that he was too far away, and Cloud was going to kill them.

Later he would think back to the fact that he could have used the force to push Cloud away. Could have pulled Aerith and Zack towards himself. He could even have just taken Cloud's lightsaber. There were any number of good and decent things he could have done. Instead, he felt a familiar stirring in himself, and he latched onto it as his best option.

The lightning that streaked from his fingers engulfed Cloud. Drew an agonized scream from him as he arched where he stood. Shook him from head to toe, threw him off balance, left him jolting on the ground.

“Go!” Sephiroth called to Aerith, striding towards them, the lightning still dancing on his fingertips. He heard an old, old ghost in the force whisper her praise, and tried to shut out her voice.

Aerith didn’t need to be told twice. She lifted Zack with a strength that was born only of desperation. Sephiroth stepped up before Cloud just as the young Jedi master started to regain himself, choking in deep breaths of dust-filled air. He let out a ragged, sobbing moan at the pain. His hand was fumbling for his lightsaber as he tried to get on his feet.

“Don’t.” Sephiroth said, low and wounded and angry. “Cloud. Stay down. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Cloud curled in on himself, shuddering in the aftermath of the lightning. Sephiroth felt his heart clench in regret and sorrow. He crouched slowly, placing a gentle hand on Cloud’s shoulder.

He should have expected the force-push that sent him flying. He didn’t. He tumbled in the dirt. When he got to his feet, Cloud was standing again, his lightsaber humming in his hand.

Strike him down, whispered that ancient ghost in Sephiroth’s ear. He waved it away and tried to steady himself.

It had seemed wise. The lightning. Non-lethal. Incapacitating. He hadn’t been prepared for the agony it would cause. The sound of Cloud screaming.

“The council was right.” Cloud said, betrayal dripping from every word, his body still hunched in agony, though he didn’t loosen his hold on the lightsaber. “There is darkness inside of you!”

“Put down the lightsaber, Cloud.” Sephiroth called. “There doesn’t have to be any more pain tonight.”

“I don’t want to do this either!” Cloud cried, anguished. "But the Jedi Way is not to do as one _pleases_! It’s not there to make you happy! It’s there to keep people safe!”

He charged. Sephiroth was ready for him now. Prepared for this. It had been years since he sparred with Cloud, but he had not changed in every way. Sephiroth flicked on his lightsaber with a thought and lifted it to block. Slapped Cloud’s blade away with a shove of force, lifting his blade again to block Cloud’s next strike, and the next, and the next. Cloud's movements were vicious and furious and out of control.

There was so much pain in him…

“Get out of my way!” Cloud demanded, locking their blades together, their forces hissing and spitting where they touched.

“Are you so eager to kill our friend?” Sephiroth snapped. “To destroy his love? His unborn child? Are you so eager to ruin their lives?”

“This is your last chance!” Cloud howled, an agony in his voice that had nothing to do with training, nothing to do with control and peace and the Jedi way. It was all selfishness. It was all sorrow.

It was for that reason that Sephiroth trusted it at once. He shoved Cloud back with a fierce push of the force. Then he met his eyes and dropped his buzzing lightsaber to sputter out on the ground.

“I will not fight you.” Sephiroth said softly. “But you will have to kill me before you kill them, Cloud.”

Cloud yelled. Directionless, terrified, all wild emotion with nowhere to put it safely. Sephiroth extended his empty hands, waiting.

“They’re going to kill you!” Cloud cried, anguished. “You have to help me, Sephiroth, they’re going to kill you! They know you’re not loyal anymore! This–This whole thing is a test! If Zack dies–if— If I—”

“Please tell me you did not kill him.” Sephiroth said softly. “That it was not a mortal wound.”

“I couldn’t.” Cloud choked like a confession. “I couldn’t. You could have, if it was for me. I know you could have. I’m not strong enough! I’m not–You have to help me!”

“I will not help you in this.” Sephiroth said softly. “You know it is wrong, Cloud. You know that.”

“Because you’re always right,” Cloud snarled, desperation making an ugly sight of him. Sephiroth felt the darkness roiling off him, and knew with a sinking certainty why Cloud feared the dark side so deeply.

“No.” He said softly. “Not even close. I was wrong to let you go. I was wrong to run from you when I felt myself falling.”

“I can’t lose you again!” Cloud was tearing himself apart at the seams. Sephiroth could see him unraveling.

Sephiroth stepped forward slowly, palms out. He did not shy away from the blinding light of Cloud’s lightsaber shining in both their eyes. He did not recoil from the splashes of red that cracked down it like electricity.

“Then stay.” Sephiroth whispered, lifting his hand slowly to Cloud’s cheek. “Stay with me here. Now. Let me try to make it even the slightest bit better for you.”

“It’s too late.” Cloud whispered. “It’s too late.”

“No one here is dead yet,” Sephiroth whispered. “It doesn’t have to be too late.”

“They said your mother—” Cloud began, but Sephiroth cut him off, carefully guiding his hand with the lightsaber aside. Its light guttered and died as he pushed it away. Cloud’s attention was fixed only on Sephiroth now.

“She was the greatest Sith to ever live, I hear.” Sephiroth said softly. “Five hundred years old by the time she gave birth to me, killed by the Jedi only two years later. It is no wonder they fear me. I know the story, Cloud. I know why you are afraid.”

“It would be so easy for you.” Cloud whispered, choking on emotion.

“As easy as for you.” Sephiroth whispered. “As easy as for anyone pushed to the brink. Let it go, Cloud. Let it go. Killing Zack was never going to keep me safe.”

“We can’t go back,” Cloud sobbed. “They’ll—”

“I don’t want to go back.” Sephiroth whispered, cupping Cloud’s cheek. “The Jedi took everything from me. And then they have asked me over and over to thank them for it. They drew me away from you when they sensed my love for you.”

“You were too attached.” Cloud whispered. Quoting someone again, no doubt. Sephiroth stepped closer. The hilt of Cloud’s lightsaber clattered to the ground.

“What if I want to be attached?” Sephiroth whispered, his hand gripping Cloud’s wrist, drawing his fingertips to Sephiroth’s chest. “What if I would sooner struggle for what I love than go back to fearing it?”

“Sephiroth...” Cloud whispered, his voice broken. His expression miserable and dazed.

A tear slid down his cheek as Sephiroth leaned in, carefully brushing their lips together, re-creating the moment that had torn them apart, but in reverse this time. His lips brushed Cloud’s gently. Sealed a connection that Cloud had tried to open years ago. A connection he had been too afraid to hold before.

He was watching when Cloud surrendered. When he let go of the darkness that had given him some strength and hope. When he gave into the love that had tortured him so long instead.

He stepped forward, and Sephiroth closed him in a tight hold, feeling the shudders of pain still wracking him. The hitching sobs that caught him off guard.

“I hurt him.” Cloud whispered against Sephiroth’s neck, horror coiling through him so strongly that Sephiroth could feel it crawl over his skin.

“There is nothing to be done for that now but healing.” Sephiroth whispered. “You cannot take it back, Cloud. No more than I can take back leaving you alone all those years.”

“The woman...Aerith... She won’t feel safe if I’m free.” Cloud said, his voice shaking. “You should chain me up. Lock me in the ship. Bind me. Something to make her feel safe enough for you to check on Zack.”

Sephiroth reached out into the world, closing his eyes. He smiled wearily at what he found, and squeezed Cloud a little tighter.

“Reach out.” Sephiroth urged. “Let them feel you. Reach out to them.”

He felt Cloud suck in a breath against his chest. Held him up while he shuddered, wondering if there would be scars from his terrible lightning. Then he held him up while Cloud collapsed into broken sobs as he found Zack. Found the thoughts permeating the force from Zack’s heart. Fear and worry and adoration. Sephiroth felt Cloud’s spirit rise to meet them. Sorrow and fear and guilt and enough worry to drown in. They clashed against each other and clung to one another.

It would have ruined him, Sephiroth thought grimly. The council had played Cloud viciously. Forced him into an impossible choice that would have doomed him without a doubt, no matter what he chose.

They would pay for that, he promised himself, even as he sank to his knees, holding Cloud tightly against his chest. But not yet.

For now…

For now, he was going to be selfish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: High School Au


	21. High School

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

“So,” Sephiroth said, his varsity jacket snug around his broad shoulders, his movements confident. “Have you given it any thought?”

First day of Cloud’s junior year, and already Sephiroth was complicating things.

The hallway was crowded, but Cloud had turned from his locker the moment he heard Sephiroth’s voice. He watched him moving closer, watched the people turning to look, their expressions ranging from annoyance to concern to a smug satisfaction. Cloud was too outspoken to not have enemies for classmates, and Sephiroth was too pretty and quiet to not be on everyone’s good side.

“It?” Cloud asked, leaning back against his locker as Sephiroth stepped close, well into his personal space. Gods he was tall. He leaned against the top of the wall of lockers, hemming Cloud in. Blocking their conversation from anyone not blatantly eavesdropping.

“The whole back to school thing.” Sephiroth murmured, tilting his head so his hair spilled to the side in a shining curtain. “Old rivalries, new complications, a ton of classes, our new situation…”

“We’re not going with your tutoring story.” Cloud said, lifting a hand to shove Sephiroth but only ending up with it resting against his chest. “Everyone knows you’re smarter than me.”

“Maybe I need tutoring in drama.” Sephiroth purred.

“You didn’t.” Cloud whispered, his eyes widening and a grin crossing his face.

“I had to pick an elective.” Sephiroth’s shrug was smooth and easy, but his expression was as smug as Cloud had ever seen it.

“Oh my god.” Cloud whispered, grinning. “You’re going to have to learn monologues.”

“I’ll practice them on the field.” Sephiroth murmured. “That one soliloquy from that show you took me to. That whole, ‘we do but feign here with fake swords’ thing. What show was that?”

“Henry V. Is this a joke, Sephiroth? Are you just doing this to laugh at it with your friends?”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said, bending closer to whisper in his ear. “Nothing you love is a joke to me. Not anymore.”

“Hm.” Cloud muttered, turning slightly towards Sephiroth’s face, letting his head rest against his cheek. “Took you long enough.”

* * *

A year ago, Cloud's sophomore experience at Midgar High was turning into a nightmare. Principal Shinra had it out for the drama department, and there was just… nothing he could do about it. That was what everyone said. Dr. Barret the drama teacher muttered it with a glower that seemed extremely out of place on a man painting pretty pink flowers on the wall of their set.

Tifa said it softly, a sour look on her face. Mr. Valentine, Cloud’s guidance counselor, only watched him with a contemplative look and warned him against ‘rash behavior taken in the name of love.’

Yuffie was the only one of his circle to give him any encouragement in regards to his big plan.

“Hell yeah!” She said, pumping her fist and grinning so fiercely it was nearly a snarl. “Stick it to the man, Cloud!”

So Cloud waited till finals week, when the seniors would be buckling down to their yearly pranks. It was the time when any vandalism, break-ins, or other rule-breaking would be pinned on the graduating class. Then he headed over to the school in the middle of the night and climbed the fence.

It tore his favorite jeans and scratched his leg as he went over, but that was just as well. It made a cooler story, and he’d been hoping to get some artistic rips in his jeans over the summer anyhow. Making them on purpose seemed cheap, but getting them snagged on a fence while sneaking around…

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Cloud tugged his bandanna a little higher on his face, hefting his rattling duffel bag. He knew the school’s cameras were shit, but he was wearing the face mask and one of the drama department’s hats, just in case. It had been a fun day after school, hanging out with the drama club, sneaking away to pick out a hat he’d borrow for the night, keeping it hidden in his bag the rest of the day.

He’d considered the fake police officer’s cap for the irony, but he’d gone with a black top hat that would definitely disguise his distinctive spiked hair while giving him a truly dramatic 'gentleman vandal' look. He kept jogging, heading steadily towards the gym.

His initial target had been the stadium, but the security there was ridiculously tight and ridiculously high-tech compared to the actual school. Like with everything, they had made an exception for their football team. Cloud clenched his teeth behind his mask, lifting a hand to hold on his top hat, as he jogged a little quicker. The gym would do to take out some frustration and make a point.

He took out his first color before he was even there. He shook up the can, glaring at the wall. He stood in front of it a long moment, breathing deeply, trying to work up his nerve. Then he clenched his teeth and began his work. Blue paint on the red brick wall, harder to control than he’d thought at first. It wasn’t elegant (he should have talked to the art department kids about how to get spray paint to look good) but he got his message across.

“Midgar High: Violence Over Education”

He grinned sharply, surveying it, trying not to breathe the fumes. He shoved the blue back in his bag and jogged a little further down the wall, holding the duffel close to his side.

He chose yellow next. Put together a rough caricature of the principal. Wrote next to him “I feel threatened by Art!”

The caricature looked ridiculous, but Cloud applied two quick bursts of blue for his eyes, and that made him recognizable enough.

Seriously, next time he’d talk to some of the art students first.

He considered the doors to the gym, shaking up a can of red paint. He was halfway through writing ‘Pain is Worth More $’ when he heard a rattling clunk from nearby.

Cloud flinched, his can jerking away, turning his work into ‘Pain is Wor—” with an awkward streak off the side.

Distantly, he caught the edge of someone’s whispered cursing.

Cloud tugged up his mask, running through a hundred scenarios in his head. A teacher? A janitor? A burglar?

Probably not, he told himself, hearing the person around the corner pick whatever had rattled off the ground. More likely another kid, doing what he was doing. Maybe one of the seniors he was hoping this would get pinned on?

He put his duffel on the ground quietly, sneaking closer. He peered around the corner and blinked at what he saw.

There was a man there alright. Wearing a hoodie pulled up over his head, and a black cowl over his mouth and nose. Cloud watched him shake up a spray can.

Please don’t be drawing dicks, Cloud thought, edging a little further out to peek at what the other vandal was working on. He blinked at the beautiful words, artfully formed, the step stool making it clear how he’d gotten them so high, the ruler implying how carefully he’d been working on his message.

**“Selling Teens’ Futures: Midgar High Football”**

And the next line down, smaller, more delicately written, rather clearly put together with stencils rather than freehanded.

_“Ignore Your Concussions; Make Us Money.”_

He’d even sprayed on the crossed-swords logo of the Soldier’s team.

“Woah.” Cloud breathed aloud, his hand on top of his hat as he leaned, keeping it on his head as he stared.

The other kid noticed him and whirled, spray-can raised in mock defense. Cloud grinned, lifting his hands in surrender. The work was on the side of the building that the highway went past, Cloud realized. Holy shit, this person was just letting the whole damn world know.

“That’s fucking hardcore.” Cloud said, grinning behind his mask.

“I— Uh—” The other kid stuttered in a strikingly low voice. He looked to his work then back to Cloud. Cloud couldn’t make out much of his face or expression, between how dark it was and the covering on his face.

“It’s cool, man, I was spray painting on the other side,” Cloud laughed. “But hot damn, yours is better than anything I’ve written. It’s fucked up. The football culture. It’s just a playground for assholes to be bigger assholes.”

The other figure didn’t answer, but lowered the spray paint, staring at Cloud still but no longer about to spray paint his face off.

“I’ll let you get back to it, man,” Cloud said awkwardly, shifting in his place. “Sorry for startling you. I know I’d sure hate to—”

He was broken off by a terrible sound. The sound of a car taking the turn into the parking lot. He and the stranger both turned towards the parking lot as headlights swept around the corner and towards them. Cloud jerked forward, grabbing the frozen kid’s hand and dragging him away as the lights headed towards them.

The other boy stumbled into motion, and in no time he had passed Cloud, though dragging him along by Cloud’s grip on his arm. They sprinted away from the spray painted gym, leaving their supplies and their messages. Cloud heard the door to the car opening. Someone yelling something. His grip slipped and he stumbled at the loss of the towing effect of the much-faster vandal.

He picked himself up to keep sprinting as best he could past his burning lungs and pounding heart. But the other boy stopped and turned back, grabbing his arm again rather than leaving him behind. They took off together.

They were nearly to the side of the building, the same fence Cloud had climbed, when they saw the first hint of flashing blue lights.

They both skidded to a stop, tennis shoes scattering gravel and sliding over the uneven ground. Cloud sucked in a breath. This was bad with a capital ‘b’. If nothing else, it sure wouldn’t make the principal any _happier_ with the drama department. Cloud cast about, glancing back towards the back of the building. Inspiration struck hard, and he grabbed his fellow vandal once more, sprinting back towards the back of the school, heading towards the concrete steps that led to the drama department’s basement access.

Cloud knew this broken door. Knew it thoroughly. Knew more than once some kid had unlocked it and propped it open to make going in and out easier. Knew they had gotten in trouble at least three times that year so far for forgetting to close it at night.

If they were lucky, if they were really, really lucky…

They were. Cloud hauled the door open past the brick and gestured fervently to the other kid, not sure what the sounds he heard from the gym and the roads and the parking lot meant, where the people after them were, whether they had seen them…

The other boy ducked past him into the building, and Cloud followed, kicking out the brick and pulling the door closed behind them, leaving them in the near-total darkness of the basement hallway. One yellowing fluorescent light flickered further down the hall.

“Come on.” Cloud whispered. “We’ll be safe in the black box.”

“The what?” Whispered the other boy, following, and Cloud was sure now he wasn’t one of the theater kids. For one thing, the arm he’d grabbed was crazy muscly. Add that to the way he ran--He wasn't even _panting--_ and Cloud was sure he’d have known an actor like that. He hated the football team enough to risk tagging the building, though, so it had to be one of the art or literature kids. Maybe a JROTC recruit? Some of them were cool.

“In here,” Cloud said, pushing against the door to their little downstairs practice space, with its cheap auditorium seating (repurposed from the old stadium, where it had gotten too sad for their oh-so-special football team) and its miniature facsimile of a stage. Right now there was a screen blocking most of it after some class had used the space for movies that day.

Cloud scrambled past the screen, hopping easily up onto the stage he spent so much time on. They technically had a full auditorium, but they all knew it was more for speeches, assemblies, and renting out to anyone who would pay enough to use it. They got it twice a year only, for one winter and one spring performance.

They still had four performances a year, but the others were held here, in their tiny, cramped theater, built more like a bunker than a venue. They usually performed to a crowd of their peers, and the lack of space generally meant their actors exited the scene to join the audience watching, since they had nowhere else to go. They tried to use it in their performances–To make it make sense within the story, or to only tell stories it would work with.

That way it felt like making art, even if they all knew that it was just coping with something inescapable.

Cloud fumbled on the stage for their sad little ghost light, kept more as a visual aid for Dr. Barret when he was trying to explain ghost lights than because this stage really needed one. Either way, Cloud turned it on now, and yanked his bandanna off, trying to catch his breath.

He turned to the other boy, grinning with a wild, terrified abandon, even as his heart hammered.

The stranger was crouched, peering around the screen, waiting and listening. Cloud moved over quietly, sitting near him, tilting his head to listen in.

“I don’t think they’ll find us,” Cloud whispered. “I don’t think they even saw us.”

“We’ll find out, I guess.” The other boy whispered in return, his voice low and rough. “I didn’t know this place was down here. That was quick thinking.”

“Yeah, well, there are some advantages to being stuck in the basement so much, I guess.” Cloud snickered, grinning. “I’m Cloud.”

He stuck his hand out for a shake. He watched the dark gloved hands hesitate. Noticed the spots of yellow spray paint on his fingers. The boy lifted his hand rather than taking Cloud’s, pulling his mask down and pushing his hood off his head. Cloud felt his stomach drop at the sight of him.

“I’m not sure you want to shake my hand.” Said Sephiroth, star quarterback of the Midgar Soldiers and Cloud’s internal mortal enemy. He’d never actually met the guy, but he’d decided to be mortal enemies with him the moment he’d seen him, surrounded by jocks and cheerleaders, looking above it all, not even smiling and laughing with his own friends.

“You?” Cloud asked, his jaw dropping.

“Ready to change your mind and rat me out?” Sephiroth asked, tilting his head to look around the screen again. “After all, according to you I’m an asshole training to be a bigger asshole, right?”

“I, uh…” Cloud stuttered. “Assumed you were some art kid. Your work looked, um…”

“Planned.” Sephiroth said flatly. “I had something I wanted to say and I said it.”

Cloud gaped at him, feeling a little splinter of shame at his own ill-planned and emotional reaction.

“Are you, um…” He started. “Okay?”

“What?” Sephiroth asked, yanking his gaze off the still-closed door.

“What you wrote. About concussions and stuff. Are you hurt?”

“In theory or in practice?” Sephiroth asked, turning his eyes back to the door. "It doesn’t matter. Thanks for bringing me here. Sorry for betraying you by being who I am.”

Passive aggressive much, Cloud thought, crossing his arms.

“Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Cloud quoted, lifting a finger. “So… I’m Cloud.”

He extended his hand again, stubbornly.

“And I’m sorry for calling you an asshole.”

Sephiroth hesitated, glancing him up and down. Damn he was beautiful, Cloud thought. It was unfair. SO unfair. That jawline, those eyes, that nose, those lips… It was no wonder they put him in the paper so much.

“Sephiroth.” The boy said at last, taking his hand. “Though you knew that.”

“Nah.” Lied Cloud. “I had no idea.”

That coaxed a smile from Sephiroth, who gave his hand one firm squeeze before releasing the grip.

“So… You do graffiti often?” Cloud asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

Sephiroth snorted, shifting where he sat, crossing his legs to settle in for the moment.

“No.” He muttered. “Practice usually takes up all my vandalism time.”

“Why… Do you do it? The football thing.” Cloud asked. “If you’re mad enough to write something like that?”

“It’s just something I have to do.” Sephiroth said with a shrug. “It’s not usually bad. I just… One of my friends got hurt, and they tried to keep it quiet so he could keep playing. I just want them to think about the fact that they’re being watched.”

“That’s fucked up.” Cloud said. “Like, I’d get it if it was him wanting that. Like, one time I watched my friend Tifa dance on a sprained ankle for two hours after an injury, and it messed her up for weeks after. But that was cuz she just couldn’t handle not dancing just because she sprained her ankle the one night she was getting to perform. Sounds like this was a little different though?”

“A little.” Sephiroth said. “That’s hardcore though. Genesis just… Got hit hard. Had all the makings of a concussion. Coach tried to put him right back in. He couldn’t even focus… What did her teacher say? Your friend? When she realized?”

“Dr. Barret realized just before act three because she was limping and teary. He tried to keep her off stage, but she took her entrance early to keep him from catching her. He couldn’t do anything without ruining the whole show, and that would have made her dedication meaningless. He told us all later he ought to have, because our health was more important than any show, but… I dunno. He said it in a way that made it pretty clear he wasn’t really angry about it.”

“Hm.” Sephiroth said, poking at the stage floor.

“Your coach is an asshole.” Cloud blurted after a second. “And I won’t take that one back. Not just for what he did to your friend. He’s a jerk to everyone who can’t win a game for him.”

“So… He’s a jerk to you, then?” Sephiroth asked, smirking.

Cloud scowled at him, crossing his arms.

“Sorry.” Sephiroth murmured, though he sounded amused.

Cloud grumbled only a moment, poking at a spot of paint on the old wooden stage.

“How long do you think we should stay here?” He asked after a long minute.

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth said. “Depends, I guess. They might have people out right away to try to clean it up before anyone gets here, but they might have already decided they don’t care and gone home. It’s hard to tell without looking.”

“And looking means getting caught if they’re there.” Cloud sighed.

“Mmm.” Sephiroth said softly. “Unless…”

“Unless?” Cloud asked, looking over at him. Wow, he thought despite himself. That profile.

“The library’s windows face that way.” Sephiroth said softly. “And we should be able to avoid them if they’re in the hallways. They echo, and we’d be able to see any lights quickly.”

“Oh,” Cloud whispered, eyes widening. “Hell yeah. Hell yeah! Let’s go look.”

There was something about the school at night. Cloud had seen it before, at late rehearsals, jogging down the hallway on some errand for another for Dr. Barret. There was something about emptiness where there should have been a crush of bodies. It made the halls seem haunted and hungry. It made the whole school feel capital-w wrong.

Sneaking through the halls in his socks, holding his shoes in his left hand while Sephiroth held his own in his right, made it worse. The silence but for their breathing, muffled by their masks. The tension of knowing somewhere close, someone was hunting for them.

It was simultaneously ridiculous and petrifying. And as a consequence of that, Cloud had to keep smothering panicky laughter, pressing his free hand over his face to restrain it.

Worse, it was contagious, and Sephiroth was starting to stifle laughter as well, huffing through his nose every time Cloud snickered, choked it back, covered his mouth to keep from laughing.

“Ridiculous.” Sephiroth whispered, a grin briefly lighting on his face.

“Shhh,” Cloud instructed, snickering even as he tried to hush Sephiroth. “W–We’re super secr—” He choked off around a snort, wheezing as he bent over. Watched Sephiroth’s feet pause as he waited for Cloud to regain himself. “S-ehehe, secret agents.”

“You’re having fun.” Sephiroth whispered, playfully accusatory.

“I’m terrified.” Cloud replied through a helpless giggle.

Sephiroth huffed another laugh, putting his hand on Cloud’s back and steering him forward.

“Then you’re doing a great job of acting, drama kid.” Sephiroth whispered.

They made it to the library only to find those doors safely locked. They stood in front of them a moment, trying to peer through the doorway windows to see outside. It wasn’t of much use.

“We can check the classrooms?” Cloud offered in a whisper. “Surely some of the teachers are lazy about closing up.”

“One can hope.” Sephiroth whispered in reply. “At the very least we haven’t seen signs that anyone is looking inside the school yet.”

They split up, each taking every other door. Cloud tried to rattle the doors as quietly as possible till he realized that Sephiroth was just jiggling the handles roughly and moving on. Cloud followed suit a minute later, restless and not wanting to fall behind the football kid.

Cloud recognized the room that remained unlocked. The German professor. Retiring at the end of the year, he’d heard. When he stepped inside he found why it was unlocked.

“Seniors.” He whispered to Sephiroth, eyeing the year scrawled on the board and the ceiling tiles stacked neatly by the door, leaving the entire ceiling bare.

“Uninspired.” Sephiroth muttered in complaint to Cloud. “They should be grateful we left them a more interesting legacy.”

“Got plans for your senior prank next year?” Cloud whispered, picking his way through the desks.

“Trying not to make plans at all, honestly.” Sephiroth chuckled. “I suppose some part of me is hoping I won’t be back here.”

“Come on.” Cloud scoffed. “You’ve got it made. No teacher wants to flunk you, you could date any girl you wanted, your basically a local hero—”

“My teachers don’t want to challenge me, even though I’d like to be challenged, I have never done anything worth a town’s adoration, and I don’t like girls.” Sephiroth said flatly. “Not in a sexist way. Girls are fine. Just not… I don’t… _Like_ like them. Girls.”

Cloud blinked, staring over at him.

“Huh.” He said. “You should join the drama department. That’s where most of us go.”

“Us?” Sephiroth asked, shooting Cloud a small smile.

“Don’t rub it in that I’m bonding with you.” Cloud groaned. “I just figure one coming out deserves another.”

He tried not to think about how cute Sephiroth was when he smiled. It only made it worse that he knew he was gay now.

Come on, Cloud, he scolded himself. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s not a big football jerk. Who’s been super nice. And looks super good, and oh no, oh my god, I’ve got a crush, I’ve known him for half an hour at most.

“Looks like we’re in luck.” Sephiroth commented, craning his neck to see out the window. “Parking lot’s empty, and I don’t see any police lights anymore. Our stuff is gone, though.”

“I was gunna ditch it anyhow.” Cloud said with a shrug. “You lose anything good?”

“It was a nice step stool.” Sephiroth commented. “But it won’t be missed. Let’s go while we still can.”

Cloud felt a little lurch of dread as they snuck out of the vandalized classroom. They’d leave, and things would go back to normal. Sephiroth in the paper and on the football field, and in a completely different world. He’d like this. Liked the adventure, the handsome stranger, the imminent danger…

It didn’t mean he was thrilled when they shoved on the front door and it didn’t budge.

“What.” Sephiroth whispered, staring at the closed glass and stainless steel. “The hell.”

“Ugh,” Cloud muttered, shoving against it. “Do you think they, like, lock it up at night from both sides or something? To stop anyone from sneaking in and out and things? Or is it all just so decrepit the goddamn doors don’t work?”

“This is a fire hazard.” Sephiroth hissed, shoving against the next door down as if it might give him a different result. “These things are never supposed to lock from the inside.”

“And yet, here we are!” Cloud proclaimed. “In a school that cares more about football than its own students burning to death!”

“Seriously?” Sephiroth asked. “Now? Get some perspective, Cloud, we have bigger problems than football.”

“I’m pretty sure they can be traced back to sports in general.” Cloud said assuredly.

“Cloud. You realize that we are trapped at a crime scene.”

“Worried you’ll get kicked off the team?” Cloud teased.

“Worried I’ll get kicked out of high school and ruin my prospects.” Sephiroth said flatly. “Aren’t you worried they’ll kick you out of your little drama club?”

“Hey.” Cloud said, pointing at him. “We’re not little. We’re just under-funded. There’s a lot of talent in our drama department. Not that _you'd_ care.”

“Whatever.” Sephiroth muttered. “I’m going to go try some other doors. Maybe you can go practice a speech or something.”

Cloud watched him turn to go. Felt his voice catch in his throat. He almost waited too long.

“I didn’t—” He managed to choke out. “I’m not… I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I know that.”

Sephiroth hesitated, then turned to Cloud slowly.

“Did something happen recently?” He asked after a moment. “You don’t seem… Forgive me. Soft-spoken. I feel I would have heard your complaints before today.”

Cloud hesitated, then lowered his head.

“They’re shutting us down after next year.” Cloud muttered. “I know I’ll be a junior, but… The thought of senior year without drama… Of Dr. Barret not being there, and not… Not building sets, or learning lines, or having that space, that time, that magic…”

Sephiroth was silent, watching, so Cloud kept going.

“They’re building you new locker rooms,” He blurted, tears in his eyes. “They can’t pay Dr. Barret, they can’t maintain our program, but they’re building the football team new locker rooms. I don’t… We tried to reason with them! Tried to come up with good ways to cut the budget. We were willing to give up our main stage productions, to keep it all in the black box, to make do with tiny audiences and that tiny space, but… They just said it was non-negotiable. Tried to use our enthusiasm for it as evidence that we were just using the class and the rehearsals to goof around in.”

Sephiroth looked down, eyes tracing over the floor. When he spoke, it was softly, carried in the faux-marble entryway.

“I’m sorry.” He said softly. “I wish it was us shutting down. Drama sounds… Better.”

Cloud watched him a moment, standing there looking tired and defeated for all his glory.

“Are you okay?” He asked again.

“I don’t want to do this again next year.” Sephiroth whispered. “I’d give anything to have a senior year with no football. No practice, no bruises, no pressure or screaming or pictures. No autographs or newspaper articles or endless nitpicking…”

“You… Don’t want to do it?” Cloud asked softly. “Why do you?”

“What would I tell my parents?” Sephiroth asked with a shrug. “They’ve already signed me up for scouts. For scholarships. And that’s not to mention coach, or the team, or the whole town, for that matter. Like you said, I’m their hero. Imagine what I’d be to them if I quit.”

Cloud stared at him as he tugged at the sleeves of his hoodie. As he rolled his shoulders like he was trying to get comfortable in his own body again.

Cloud checked his watch.

“Yup.” He said mildly. “That’s what I thought.”

“Hm?” Sephiroth asked.

“It’s three am,” Cloud informed him. “All the best conversations happen at 3am. That’s why you have to stay up late at sleepovers.”

“That late already?” Sephiroth murmured. He pulled his phone out, waking it up and squinting at the light on the screen. “Well. I suppose it’s good we have time to decide what we’ll do when the first professors arrive and find us locked in here.”

“How about we go back down to the drama department?” Cloud offered. “I could show you one of my silly speeches or find one of our movies. I think I can convince Dr. Barret to give us some slack. He might seem like a jerk, but he’s a great guy.”

“I’ve never met him.” Sephiroth said. “But… I think I would very much like to see one of your speeches, Cloud.”

Cloud recited Puck from Midsummer for him. It felt natural, standing on the stage, lit only by the ghost light. They'd gotten the screen retracted into the ceiling with a little combined work. Sephiroth watched him closely, the look on his face not quite understanding, but not cold either. When Cloud finished, Sephiroth applauded, alone in the audience, and Cloud couldn’t help his flush.

“You were right.” Sephiroth told him. “There is talent in the drama department.”

They ended up spending the rest of the night there. Flipping through plays and costume design portfolios from the drama students. Sephiroth would ask about a play, and Cloud would sing snippets of show tunes, or try to explain the concept, or as often as not say ‘Ugh, not that one.’

Sephiroth, it turned out, had read some Shakespeare. Only Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar, all for class assignments, but Cloud relaxed a touch when Sephiroth assured him that though they’d been assigned he’d liked them well enough.

“That’s sort of what I like,” Sephiroth confessed in a whisper. “Writing. That sort of feeling of… having all the right words in the right order. Making meaning out of pixels or ink.”

Oh no, thought Cloud’s poor heart, falling deeper in love by the moment.

They ended up falling asleep side by side in the uncomfortable recycled stadium chairs, having been trying to watch Citizen Kane. That must have been what the class had been watching earlier in the day, because it was the only one Cloud could find to put on.

It was so easy to relax into Sephiroth’s side. So easy to treasure the strange and frightening night. So easy to pretend morning wouldn’t come.

It did, with a bang of the door and a grunt of alarm from Sephiroth. Cloud was on his feet in moments, turning to Dr. Barret. He put himself between Sephiroth and his favorite teacher, waiting for the tirade. Barret stared at them both. Then, to Cloud’s surprise, smirked. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the gym and lifted his eyebrows. Cloud glanced to Sephiroth, then nodded.

“Alright kids,” Dr Barret huffed. “Stick it to the old people more carefully next time. Get gone before someone else finds you. Go have breakfast before you come back.”

“Sir...” Sephiroth said softly.

“That’s _Dr_. Sir, kid,” Barret instructed, walking down the side isle of the seating area.

“Thank you.” Sephiroth whispered.

Barret grinned, and Cloud pulled Sephiroth out of the room at a sprint before anyone else could see them.

It turned out Sephiroth could drive. Cloud found out because he was towed to Sephiroth’s shiny silver car and ushered into the passenger’s seat.

“Since you got me out of trouble last night,” Sephiroth said, opening the door for him. “The least I can do is buy you a bagel.”

“Well.” Cloud said slowly. “One bagel.”

He had one and a half bagels. Sephiroth had split one with him. He also had two cups of crappy over-sweetened coffee. He and Sephiroth were late to school. Cloud asked to be let out a block away.

“It’ll be weird if it looks like we ended up best friends overnight.” Cloud said awkwardly. “I don’t want to put any suspicion on us.”

“Of course.” Sephiroth said, though he sounded disappointed.

“But...” Cloud said slowly. “Maybe we could meet up this weekend? Get some coffee? Reminisce about how our little, uh, adventure went over?”

Sephiroth smiled.

“I’d like that.”

Sephiroth was in the paper again. Though no one but Cloud knew it was him. By the weekend, no one in the town had not read the words ‘Ignore Your Concussions; Make Us Money.’

Cloud was glad they only barely mentioned his scrawlings. In comparison to Sephiroth’s carefully chosen words his own messages felt weak and watery. He had a lot to learn.

Fortunately, as the summer engulfed them, he and Sephiroth had a lot of time to spend together.

* * *

“So?” Sephiroth whispered, hovering over Cloud at the beginning of his Senior year, and Cloud’s Junior one. “You still haven’t answered me.”

Cloud smiled, about to answer, when they were interrupted by Sephiroth’s jacket being gripped in a tight fist and the young man being hauled away.

“Back off my friend.” Tifa snarled at Sephiroth, fury in her every line.

Sephiroth blinked and looked to Cloud for backup against the furious young woman currently looking like she was considering landing a suckerpunch.

“Tifa,” Cloud laughed, grinning and pleased despite himself, “would you please put my boyfriend down?”

The shocked silence that followed might have been one of Cloud’s favorite audience reactions of all times. The way Sephiroth’s face melted into a relieved smile at his decision not to keep it a secret…

That might have been his very favorite of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Science Fiction AU


	22. Science Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's got it all. His dream job hunting meteors, his gorgeous husband, and a little place at the edge of the city. But the meteor they find in the desert isn't what it ought to be. And no matter what Sephiroth's says, there is no way that it's normal for his hand to look like that after touching it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! There's some body horror in the image and the chapter both! (Hang in there Sephiroth...)

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

“Atmospherium.” Sephiroth said, his brows lowered, his voice serious.

“We are not calling it that!” Cloud groaned. “Stop suggesting Atmospherium!”

“Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science.” Sephiroth quoted stoically. “It could mean actual advances in the field of science.”

“I’m taking away your movie night privileges.” Cloud threatened. “This is serious, Sephiroth! Find of the century! Come on!”

“I’m being very serious.” Sephiroth corrected him, looking over with a frown. “We could call it something from Lovecraft if you’d prefer. What do they call the meteor in The Color Out of Space?”

“Sephiroth!”

“Cloud!” He repeated, imitating his tone. “Relax! It’s a rock. I recognize that it is a very exciting rock from outer space, but at the end of the day we’re just going to collect a bit of debris. Breathe. You’ve been snapping at me all day.”

“It’s important to me.” Cloud muttered. “But… I know it’s important to you too. Even if you won’t say so.”

“It might hear me and run away.” Sephiroth said dryly. “Most of the scientific discoveries I’ve driven towards have heard me coming and—” He made scampering motion with his hand. Cloud snickered despite himself, grinning at the hand Sephiroth had gestured with.

His wedding ring glinted on his finger, still as bright as the day Cloud had bought it for him.

“Well.” Cloud said, smiling. “This piece of science hit the ground PRETTY hard. I don’t think it’ll be rolling out of its own crater.”

“Do you have any wood to knock on?” Sephiroth asked, his voice as flat and empty as the desert. “Now come on. If it contains an unknown substance you’d call it…?”

Cloud sighed heavily, leaning against the car door, staring out the window.

“Well… Probably MacGuffinite.” He admitted.

Sephiroth’s laugh filled the car.

The reports had mentioned a large crater, so they weren't totally unprepared. Cloud stood on the edge of it looking down. Sephiroth had gone quiet at his side, no longer joking about mysterious substances or space rocks running. 

The brutal reality of the wound on their planets surface was sobering. If it had hit a house, a city, anywhere but this desert… Even as it was, the ecological impact would be felt for decades, Sephiroth was sure. The meteor had hit hard enough that it had interrupted some underground water source, leaving the bottom of the crater filled with a clear shallow pool.

“Wow.” Cloud muttered. “For this much of it to be left after getting through the atmosphere, it must have been… Massive.”

“Undoubtedly,” Sephiroth murmured. “I’m sure our space-minded colleagues will give us an estimate once we bring the specimen back to them.”

“Do we, uh, need anything else?” Cloud asked, pulling his goggles on. Usually he was a little relaxed about protocol and safety equipment. He worked primarily with rocks. They tended not to be dangerous unless you were staring right at them while you hammered. This didn’t feel normal. Nothing about the crater felt normal.

“I don’t think so.” Sephiroth said, clearing his throat as if to rid himself of the same sick tension that Cloud felt radiating off the pit. “Let’s grab our fancy meteor and get it back to the lab before you lose your nerve.”

“Me?” Cloud sputtered. “Who nearly ran off the road a week ago because he thought he saw Mothman?”

“Mothman is a relevant fear.”

“We’re in Colorado!”

“He has wings. He doesn’t have to stay in Virginia.”

“You’re a scientist!”

“So you should trust my judgement about Mothman.”

I love you, Cloud thought, even as he groaned and tromped down into the crater. I love you and your weird way of brightening things up, and diverting my fear. I hope you know even a fraction of how much I love you.

Sephiroth was snickering to himself as he stepped down into the crater behind Cloud, angling his feet and descending slowly to account for the surprisingly steep edges.

The water at the center was cold, even through their safety boots. Cloud let out a breath at the feeling of it. It was bracing, in a way. The cold water that had been hiding under the desert surface. Sephiroth was looking back at the top of the crater, pulling his shoulder-length hair up into a quick ponytail to get it off his sweating neck.

“Every time I walk down one of these I forget about having to climb up again later.” He muttered. “This time I remember. And we have to do it with a big rock in a cooler.”

“At least the cooler has wheels?” Cloud offered.

“Yes. Small cooler wheels will do us a great deal of good in this mountain of sand.”

“Good thing you have me to help then.” Cloud offered, wading into the water, inspecting the bottom of the crater for what they were looking for.

“Where’s our culprit, then?” Sephiroth asked, wading in after him.

“I don’t see it yet.” Cloud muttered. “It must have gotten covered with sand.”

“And water.” Sephiroth sighed. “Hold on. Let me go in after it.”

“I can,” Cloud offered, stubbornly.

“My arms are longer.” Sephiroth replied, smirking. “So it will take longer before I have to start diving down and holding my breath.”

“Rub it in why don’t you.” Cloud muttered. “Alright. But be careful, okay? If it’s not close to the surface I’ll go back and get our shovels.”

“Ugh.” Sephiroth commented, glancing at the steep incline of the crater.

Cloud watched him bend over, the shorter pieces of his hair falling into his face as he slid his fingers through the top layer of sand, up to his mid-bicep in the water. His thick gloves were soaked through instantly, but they stayed on, so Cloud didn’t argue.

“There we go.” Sephiroth said after a moment of shifting the sand around. “It’s a little deep. Let’s see how big this sucker is. Do we have a towel in the car?”

“I think so.” Cloud said, glancing back up towards the currently out-of-sight car. “Going to get wet?”

“Just remember I’m doing this to spare you, darling.” Sephiroth grinned, and Cloud couldn’t help but flush.

“Just remember I offered to take care of it and you said my arms were short.” Cloud retorted. “Now get me my space rock.”

“Your wish is my command.” Sephiroth chuckled.

He went to one knee in the cool water, twisting his hand slowly back and forth to work it deeper into the sand. Cloud shifted in the water, bending closer to try and catch a glimpse of their prize.

“It’s loose,” Sephiroth said. “I think I can get it free without needing any extra—”

He cut of with a hollow gasp. His arm went tense, and Cloud watched as Sephiroth went under the water’s surface. Stared without understanding at the man suddenly up to his shoulder in deep sand, his other hand pressed against the ground, head suddenly beneath the surface. The eruption of bubbles as he screamed under the water.

Cloud’s first thought was what a dumb joke it was. The second was that Sephiroth wasn’t laughing. His third was to lunge in after him, grabbing him under his arms and hauling him out of the water.

Sephiroth came up choking and gasping. Retching in desperation to get air in his lungs.

Cloud towed him back out of the water as Sephiroth shook in his grasp.

“It’s okay,” Cloud was chanting, “it’s okay, it's okay, I’ve got you, it’s okay Sephiroth. Breathe, please, just breathe, I’m here, you’re okay, you’re okay”

Sephiroth’s left hand fumbled at Cloud’s arm, finding purchase on his sleeve and holding onto him tightly.

Cloud dragged him as far as he could from the water, onto the steep incline. Collapsed with him there, laying Sephiroth back and scooting out from under him to get a look at him. Sephiroth’s face was sheet white and his lips were slightly blue, as if in those few moments he’d nearly frozen or suffocated to death. He was shuddering so hard the chattering of his teeth filled the air. There was no other sound aside from their breathing and the gentle slosh of the recently disturbed water.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud whispered, pushing his wet hair out of his face. “Love? Are you with me? Please be okay, gods, please…”

“Cloud.” Sephiroth managed, fumbling at him, catching him with his left hand, holding on tightly. Cloud mirrored his grip at once, holding Sephiroth’s hand to his chest. “S’okay. I’m okay. Just–Just startled.”

“What happened?” Cloud whispered.

“I don’t know.” Sephiroth managed through his chattering teeth. “I don’t know. But Cloud, I have it. I have it. I have it.”

“Shhh,” Cloud whispered, stroking Sephiroth’s forehead in repetitive, desperate motions. “Just breathe…”

He bent down to press his cheek to Sephiroth’s, covering him with his body under the desert sun as Sephiroth gasped and shuddered, little wet coughs escaping him now and then from the desert spring that had somehow nearly drowned him.

Sephiroth calmed down first. He so often did. Cloud found his husband’s arm wrapped around his waist, holding him in return. Became aware that Sephiroth was speaking to him, softly.

“It’s okay,” he was murmuring. “I’m okay. Just some sort of suction. Maybe a pressure differential from that same spring underground. Everything’s okay, Cloud. You got me out. It’s okay.”

Eventually, Cloud believed him enough to let out a shaking breath and pull away from his tight hug.

Sephiroth looked exhausted. As pale as before and still trembling, though his lips weren’t blue anymore and he gave Cloud a strained smile when he saw him.

“There you are.” He murmured. “It’s okay, Cloud. I’m okay. Let’s just get this thing in the car and be grateful we have a rock and a story to bring home. Alright?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cloud whispered, his face wet for reasons that had nothing to do with desert springwater.

“I’ll be better in the car.” Sephiroth promised.

Cloud forced himself up, his whole body feeling disconnected with fear. He pushed to his feet and reached down for Sephiroth.

He couldn’t help but freeze when he saw the thing in Sephiroth’s right hand. When he saw Sephiroth’s hand in general.

“You’re bleeding,” He said numbly.

“Your space rock is sharper than I thought.” Sephiroth murmured numbly. “I must have held on too tight. It’s okay.”

“Sephiroth—”

“Cloud, please. Please.”

Cloud looked at him, trembling and sopping wet. The way his eyes darted to the water. The pool was calm again. As peaceful as if no one had ever been trapped under the shining surface.

“Right.” Cloud said.

He crouched, hooking Sephiroth’s arm over his shoulder and standing with him carefully, bit by bit. The last thing they needed was to fall down the hill.

“The cooler?”

“Sephiroth, the rock isn’t important.”

“It is, Cloud. It’s okay. I don’t want to leave it after all that anyway.”

Cloud gritted his teeth, but nodded. He didn’t bother grabbing any of the other measurement equipment or supplies they’d brought to the bottom of the crater. He only grabbed the cooler and held it open for Sephiroth. He didn’t bother to be interested in the space rock yet. The blue shine of it under the burned black exterior didn’t interest him nearly so much as Sephiroth’s shredded glove and trembling, bloody hand.

“Okay?” Cloud whispered, hitching Sephiroth’s arm a little more firmly around his shoulders.

“I’m not an invalid,” Sephiroth said, already back to wry smiles and fond annoyance. Cloud might have believed it if it weren’t for how much weight he was putting on him and how his breath wheezed in his chest. He didn't know whether his strained breathing was from the water or from sheer stress.

Sephiroth was heavy, and so was the cooler. Cloud would have dropped it if not for Sephiroth’s request. As it was, he hooked it over his elbow so he could grip Sephiroth’s wrist with his free hand. He half-dragged him out of the crater as Sephiroth stumbled with him. It was petrifying. He had never seen Sephiroth like this. He’d seen him teary-eyed and smiling on their wedding day. Seen him fret and worry and stress more than once over work or conflict. Seen him running on fumes and the lingering remains of a quadruple-shot latte. Hell, Cloud had even seen him angry once or twice.

He’d never seen him weak before.

The climb couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, but it seemed to last lifetimes for Cloud. As he wondered if Sephiroth was more badly hurt than he’d thought. As he worried about his heavy breathing. As he forced his shaking hands to hold on. As they dragged up the sliding, sloping sand. Step after step.

When Cloud finally got to level ground he dropped the cooler. Sephiroth made a soft sound of protest, but Cloud ignored it, towing him towards the car and pulling open the passenger’s side door.

“Sit.” He urged, helping Sephiroth in. “Just breathe, love.”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth objected wearily. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just a little shaken.”

Cloud took a trembling breath, pressing close to catch Sephiroth in a kiss. Both their lips were shaking, their breathing too hard to draw out the kiss. But Sephiroth responded. Kissed him softly, gently sealing their lips together, lifting his left hand to cradle the back of Cloud’s head.

“I thought,” Cloud whispered. “I thought—”

“It’s okay.” Sephiroth whispered, eyes lidded wearily and a small smile on his lips. “Go get your space rock, love. Let’s get back to civilization.”

“Let me see your hand first?” Cloud requested, backing up half a step and holding out his hand.

Sephiroth offered the torn glove, wincing as Cloud peeled it away. Cloud stared down without understanding the marks he saw. The puncture wounds in Sephiroth’s palm.

“It must have some pretty intense spikes.” Sephiroth murmured, his eyes closing and his head leaning back against the headrest.

“We need to get you to a doctor.” Cloud proclaimed, even as he dug around behind the seat for his first aid kit. “We literally don’t know where that thing’s been.”

“The atmosphere fairly recently.” Sephiroth pointed out. “You and I both know what that does to a space rock. It’s been burned sterile without a doubt.”

“Maybe, but then it was submerged in stagnant water in the desert for however long. At the very least I want to make sure you’re up to date on your tetanus boosters and have them listen to your lungs and—”

“Cloud.”

Cloud numbly wiped the blood away from the punctures on his husband's skin with an alcohol swab. Sephiroth flinched, but held still for him. Only his small uncontrollable shaking impeded Cloud’s work.

“I thought you were joking.” Cloud managed to stutter. “I thought it was a joke. You needed help and I hesitated. I thought—”

“You did fine.” Sephiroth soothed. “I'm alright. You did just fine.”

Cloud only shook his head quietly and inspected the cuts for debris. He couldn’t see anything but blood. He shook up his spray-on antiseptic and coated Sephiroth’s hand liberally.

“Hold the gauze on there until we’re at the hospital, okay?” Cloud instructed.

Sephiroth nodded, his eyes closed wearily. He let Cloud press the gauze over his wounds, then took over the grip.

“The meteor please?” Sephiroth murmured. “Then you can take me in. Have you looked at it yet?”

“I’ll look at it later.” Cloud promised, jogging over to collect the cooler and shoving it behind the driver’s-side seat. “You first.”

“My hero.” Sephiroth smiled, cracking his eyes open to smile at Cloud. They were bloodshot, Cloud noticed. He swallowed hard and gunned the car, reversing away from the crater, feeling like at any moment it might widen and hungrily swallow them down.

* * *

“It will still be another hour of waiting before anyone can see me.” Sephiroth told Cloud mildly, sitting slumped in the waiting room chair. “We don’t know how stable that thing is or what it’s made of. It’s dangerous to leave it sitting in the parking lot, Cloud.”

“I don’t want to leave you here.” Cloud muttered.

“Are you worried I won’t be safe?” Sephiroth chuckled, his eyes narrowing in affection. “In this hospital? Full of doctors? Cloud. Come on.”

“I’m your husband.” Cloud said, gripping Sephiroth’s good hand tighter. “I’m not allowed to worry?”

“I’m not saying that, love. I just want this to have been worth it. And I really am concerned about the specimen. I’d like to actually be able to do my research with it, rather than just getting in trouble over a non-viable lump that sat in a cooler too long.”

“Are you seriously worried about the meteor that crashed through the atmosphere getting damaged because the car is too hot?”

“Maybe I would just prefer it be somewhere safe and away.” Sephiroth muttered. “Call me superstitious but…”

Cloud sighed, staring down at the floor, feeling trapped. He didn’t want to leave Sephiroth. He _shouldn't_ leave Sephiroth. He was sure of that. But here his husband was, asking him to take care of the thing that had gotten him hurt.

“Alright.” He muttered after a long moment of thought. “If you feel anything getting worse you have to swear you’ll tell someone, okay?”

“Cloud, I’m not a child.” Sephiroth scolded. “I won’t be in any danger. Everything’s fine. I know you’re scared, love. And I understand. Just… Trust me.”

“I do.” Cloud muttered. “I do.”

It still took everything he had to pry himself away from Sephiroth’s side. More to actually leave the building. He kept sneaking glances back. He stopped by the front desk, bending close to the man there.

“Can you keep an eye on my husband?” He murmured. “Please? He’s asked me to go take care of our, um, pet, but I’m really worried about him.”

“He’s in good hands.” The man said, giving Cloud a soft smile. “Don’t worry too much. Just remember that if you’re put in line to wait it means things aren’t too bad, okay?”

“Right,” Cloud whispered.

The words ‘things aren’t too bad’ echoed in his head, a pale comfort in an empty car as he drove back towards their lab.

“Cloud?” Aerith said when Cloud shoved his way through the swinging doors. “I thought you were taking Sephiroth to get checked out.”

“I did.” Cloud muttered. “He made me go ahead and bring the specimen. I think he just wanted me to get it out of the car.”

“I can understand that.” Aerith said. “How big is it? I’ll get a container.”

“About baseball sized?” Cloud said. “Get some tongs or something though, it cut Sephiroth’s hand up.”

“Oh no...” Aerith murmured. “Cloud, I’m sorry. If I’d thought for a second—”

“It’s okay, Aerith.” Cloud said, shaking his head. “It was just a freak accident. He’ll be alright.”

“I know. But I still feel…”

Cloud smiled at her softly, shaking his head. He wasn’t upset at her. It had been a kind gesture, giving them the retrieval assignment together. Like a little work date. He couldn’t help the guilt swirling in his gut that it had gone so badly. He’d known the moment he called her that she would feel responsible.

“It’s okay,” He insisted. “I’ll drop this off with you and go back to wait with him, okay?”

Aerith pulled the meteor out with her long tongs, dropping it neatly into the glass container and sealing it tightly.

Cloud couldn’t help but notice that despite its rough sides and the streams of blue he could see under the charred surface, there was nothing on the meteor that looked particularly sharp.

Nothing that matched the marks on Sephiroth’s hand.

“Injuries are strange like that sometimes.” Aerith commented, her worried eyes on Cloud. “They happen so quickly. Sometimes it’s impossible to piece together exactly what happened.”

Cloud tried to believe that.

Sephiroth called him while he was driving in.

“They just saw me.” Sephiroth said into the phone. “Nothing much they could do. My lungs are alright, and they bandaged up my hand a little more professionally. I’m clear to go, though they advised going home to rest instead of working any more today.”

“As if going back to the office was ever an option.” Cloud scoffed. “I’m nearly there, okay? Wait inside for me.”

“Meet you here.” Sephiroth replied. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Cloud said, frowning in confusion at the phone. That wasn’t unwelcome, for sure, but it wasn’t Sephiroth’s usual. He must have been more shaken than he was letting on.

Despite Cloud’s request, when he arrived he found Sephiroth sitting on a bench outside the hospital. He pulled up in to the patient pickup/dropoff and jumped out of the car, jogging to Sephiroth’s side.

“Hey.” He said, worry in his voice.

Sephiroth jerked his head up, gazing up at Cloud out of stark, exhausted eyes. Cloud frowned, pushing some of his beautiful silver hair back out of his face. It seemed shaggier than usual.

“Sorry,” Sephiroth said. “It was too stuffy inside. Can we go home?”

“Of course,” Cloud murmured. “Let’s go, okay?”

He helped Sephiroth up, frowning inside in confusion and worry at the fact that they’d let Sephiroth out in his state.

He caught eyes with the man behind the counter. The one who'd reassured him. But the man didn’t smile reassuringly this time. He glanced to Sephiroth, leaning on Cloud’s shoulder. Then he slowly, slowly shook his head, holding eye contact with Cloud.

Cloud didn’t know what that meant.

He drove home feeling sick in the silence hanging heavy over the car. Sephiroth slumped against the passenger side door, dozing off and on.

“How are you feeling?” Cloud asked during one of Sephiroth’s apparently wakeful moments.

“I’m just tired, Cloud.” Sephiroth murmured.

“Did the doctor say anything useful?”

“Not much.” Sephiroth sighed, his hand resting on the bandage that wound partway up his forearm. “Try to sleep, keep an eye on it for infection.”

“Tetanus?”

“I was up to date. Cloud, can we please—”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just worried.”

“You’ll feel better for sleeping too.” Sephiroth said, his eyes siding over to Cloud and a poor imitation of his usual smile on his lips. “I’m sorry, Cloud. I know you must have been so afraid. Everything’s okay now.”

“Yeah.” Cloud murmured, trying to smile in return though he felt it fall flat. Sephiroth didn’t seem to notice. He had his eyes closed again, and his head tilted against the window. “Yeah…”

Sephiroth was a little steadier heading up to their apartment than he had been while they climbed out of the crater. At least, Cloud thought he was. It helped that there was an elevator. Helped that they lived close to it. Sephiroth kept one hand on Cloud’s shoulder, but he wasn’t slumped over him tragically like he had been before.

“Think you can eat something?” Cloud offered softly when they were inside.

“I’m sorry.” Sephiroth said, shaking his head. “I’m just tired, Cloud…”

“Sure.” Cloud murmured. “Some water at least?”

“I’ve had enough water today.” Sephiroth said. “Can we rest, Cloud? Can we rest?”

He wavered, and Cloud steadied him with a hand on his chest and one on his back.

“Sephiroth,” Cloud whispered. “Love. The doctors were sure you should go?”

Don’t lie to me, he begged internally, thinking of the man shaking his head. Of Sephiroth making him leave.

The look Sephiroth turned on him was heartbreaking. That silver hair hanging beside his face. Cloud blinked at his sad eyes, and couldn’t bring himself to push.

“I’m sorry.” Cloud whispered immediately. “Of course we can rest, Seph. Please just wake me up if you feel worse, okay?”

“I will.” Sephiroth promised.

Cloud settled him in their bed. Took his shoes and socks off for him. Stripped him from his shirt. Let him keep his pants on when Sephiroth pushed his hand away.

Time for another haircut, Cloud thought to himself, sliding Sephiroth’s long hair over the pillow to make room for himself.

He lay next to him, curled on his side so he could watch his lover. Watched as Sephiroth’s face went lax with sleep in moments.Watched him late, late into the night. So late that he wasn’t sure what he was seeing anymore. Because he’d moved Sephiroth’s hair back a while ago, but there was a long strand trailing over his shoulder when he shifted.

Because the bandage wrapping his forearm and hand had been bright white before. But as Cloud lay there, his eyes hazing over with inescapable sleep, he could have sworn he saw dark colors branching out from beneath it, up his bicep. Bleeding dark purple through the white cloth.

He wasn’t aware of dreaming at first. When the dream started, it was to a crackling, splintering sound somewhere. His mind pieced the dream together around it. Locked him in the nightmare. Watching himself work his chisel into the stone on the ground. Looking down at that stone and seeing Sephiroth’s agonized faze. Watching himself chisel the cracks in him deeper and deeper and deeper, taking a core sample of the man he loved, callously, while he suffered.

Until the muffled, stone-covered sound of Sephiroth’s agony consumed him.

Cloud jerked awake in the dark of an early morning. His hand reached out at once only to find the bed at his side empty and cold.

He tore out of bed. Raced to the bathroom, the kitchen, the doorway. Sephiroth’s shoes were still on the bedroom floor. His shirt was on the nightstand where Cloud had left it. There was blood in the hallway. Blood on the walls of the kitchen. Blood in the foyer.

The door was hanging open.

The blood was all wrong. It was all wrong. Should have been redder, browner. Shouldn’t have been iridescent. Shouldn’t have looked like the blue of the meteor painted across the wall.

* * *

“Aerith!”

He’d meant to be calm. Tried to be calm. But the moment she picked up the phone he found himself yelling, his voice cracking.

“Cloud?” Her voice, instantly shaken, coming through loud and clear.

“Please, gods, tell me Sephiroth is there!” Cloud begged, dressed in the previous day’s clothes, following the splashes of blood out the door. On the walls. The floor. The elevator walls. Raced past a janitor growling to himself and surveying the mess. Pushed out the front doors just as the first sirens where whirling up.

“What?” Aerith’s voice went higher pitched in concern. “No! I haven’t seen him. Did something happen? Is he alright?”

“I don’t know!” Cloud’s voice was high pitched in panic. His palms sweating as he got to his parking space. Found the truck gone. Tire tracks streaked on the ground. “Gods, Aerith, I think something’s really wrong! He was acting strange last night, I thought he just… He took the car! I don’t know where he went!”

“Okay,” Aerith said, her voice instantly defaulting to their competent leader. “Okay, Cloud, you know him. Take a slow breath. Where does he go when he’s afraid?”

“To me.” Cloud answered, the word caught somewhere between a plea and a sob.

“Where if not there, Cloud? Before you, or when you go somewhere to be alone?”

Cloud looked up to the shape of Fort Condor mountain, just barely visible from their little apartment. Part of the reason they’d chosen to move there.

“Fort Condor mountain,” Cloud said. “I’ll head that way.”

“You said he took your truck. I’m on my way to pick you up. Don’t go yet, Cloud. Don’t just start running!”

“Pick me up on the way.” Cloud said, and started running.

He knew it was pointless. Useless. The base of the mountain was a half hour drive. At _least_. Aerith would catch up to him well before he made any significant progress. He ran anyway, feet pounding the pavement, eyes fixed on the mountain that felt like his only hope.

Please be okay, he begged his husband silently. I don’t know what happened to you, I don’t know what you’re doing, but please be okay.

Aerith pulled up before Cloud had gone more than a few miles. He jumped in the passenger’s side of the car and hung on for dear life as she peeled away towards the mountain. They didn’t speak. Cloud knew he should thank her. Knew he should be hysterical, sobbing, screaming. He was silent instead, his body trembling and his eyes still fixed on that mountain top that he’d hiked to with Sephiroth so many times.

He almost missed the wreckage at first.

“No.” He moaned as Aerith gasped softly. As he realized what the white and black mess on the side of the road was. The flipped truck. The twisted metal. He was fumbling his way out the door before Aerith had even come to a full stop.

“Sephiroth!” He screamed, sprinting down towards the car. He stumbled to a stop once he got a clear look at the truck.

It was empty. Thank the gods it was empty. But…

That same blood. Bluish black. It was eating away at the metal, even as he watched. Corroding it. The door had been torn off. It had been…

“Cloud,” Aerith whispered, stepping up beside him, “what—”

“The meteor.” Cloud said bleakly. “Something happened. He–I— Aerith, I need you to call paramedics. Doctors. Anyone. There’s no reception on the mountain. Get them here, okay?”

“Cloud, that door–Those are hand prints.”

“I’m going up after him.” Cloud said, leaving no room for argument. “Get help here for when we come down!”

He didn’t give her time to argue. He just ran. The awful blood dried up before the trail up the mountain began, but Cloud kept running. There wasn’t a body, so he kept running. There weren’t any answers, so he ran, and ran, and ran. Higher and higher. He couldn’t catch his breath, but it didn’t matter. The burning in his legs, the stabbing pain of his ankle when he wrenched it, the tears clouding his vision—

He discarded them all as useless, and kept running till he couldn’t anymore. And then he walked, steady and dogged and desperate. Higher and higher as the sun only barely began to rise.

The silhouette at the top of the cliff didn’t even look like a human at first. Too many limbs, too much hair, not human, not real, not right. But no, Cloud thought. No. He knew that silver hair. Knew that body, even standing listing weakly to the side. Even with those four impossible wings protruding from his back. Even with hair tugging in the wind, so long that it danced around his calves. Even with the heavy, uneven motions of his breathing.

Cloud stood a long moment, silent, struggling to breathe without a sound. Not sure what to say. Not sure what to do. Not sure what was happening.

There was nothing dreamlike about it aside from that it was impossible. Nothing but the incomprehensibility of it. The sun was just beginning to kiss Sephiroth’s pale, bare flesh. Just beginning to catch on the shining, fleshy wings. The light put on display the bruised tone of Sephiroth’s skin. The dark spiderweb of his veins tracing their way under his skin, down his right arm, branching all across his back.

Cloud watched the wings shudder and stretch. Heard Sephiroth choke back a groan of pain. Watched him hunch in on himself and take a staggering step closer to the edge.

“Sephiroth!” Cloud called, jolting forward a step as he realized the danger his husband was in.

The peace of the moment shattered as Sephiroth turned to him. His eyes-- Cloud saw a glint of terrible red. So bright he could make it out even as far away as he was. He could see his hair more clearly now. Sephiroth’s hair, yes, but feet longer. Overnight. And... And the wings flaring out from his back, strange and twisted and shining in the sunlight.

“Cloud.” Choked Sephiroth. Like he was still half-drowned. His voice all overwhelmed desperation.

“Are you okay?” Cloud cried, running forward until Sephiroth took an unsteady step back from him and froze Cloud’s advance in its tracks.

Sephiroth’s answering laugh was hysterical. Broken. He lifted his damaged hand. The dark webs were strongest there. When Cloud caught a glimpse of his palm he saw the puncture wounds, oozing purple into him. Saw that his fingernails were wrong. Pointed. _Clawed_.

“I had to get higher,” Sephiroth said, his voice made weak with overwhelming desperation. “I had to get higher. It wants to be in the stars. It wants to be back in the stars, Cloud!”

“Sephiroth, love, it’s going to be okay. I’m so sorry I didn’t wake up when this—”

“You were supposed to stay asleep.” Sephiroth said, shuddering in revulsion, his hand reaching up, reaching back, fumbling at one of the wings. “You weren’t supposed to see me like this. What has it done to me? What—”

“Love,” Cloud said softly, “I would never want to be asleep while you’re hurting. You know that. Please, let me come to you. Please.”

“It wants to fly, Cloud.” Sephiroth gasped. “It wants to go home. It wants me to—”

“You must be so tired.” Cloud forced his voice to be gentle, forced his shaking hands to extend towards his husband. “Gods, you must be exhausted. Please, let me come to you. Are you hurt? Is it hurting you?”

“Yes.” Sephiroth gasped, the truth escaping him as if it was being dragged up from his guts on a string. “Cloud, the car, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t care about the car.” Cloud shook his head. Blinked tears out of his eyes to keep seeing straight. Watched Sephiroth waver where he stood. “I don’t care about anything but keeping you safe.”

“I’m a monster.” Sephiroth whispered. “I’m not human. I’m not… I… I could be dangerous, I…”

Cloud shook his head hard. Shook it harder. Stormed over before Sephiroth could change his mind. Advanced when Sephiroth stepped back. Advanced when his eyes flared red and his unnatural wings went stiff at his back, and his clawed hands raised to stop him.

He brushed the claws aside without fear and lifted his hands to Sephiroth’s cheeks. Held him there, staring up into his eyes. There was red in their centers, like little lights inside the holes of his pupils.

“You aren’t going anywhere.” Cloud whispered, all ferocious intensity.

He watched the words shudder through Sephiroth. Watched him bow his head. Watched him sink to his knees.

“It will eat me alive.” His voice was so small. So unsteady.

“We’ll get you help.” Cloud replied. “Aerith or the hospital or someone. You’ll be okay, Sephiroth. You’ll be okay.”

The man shuddered again. Cloud dragged him closer. Clung to Sephiroth’s hair, pressing his cheek against his head. Felt the tears falling hot and furious and miserable as he held onto Sephiroth for dear life. Sephiroth’s hands lifted slowly. They curled twitching and jerking and shaking around Cloud’s back.

“I’m not even sure I’m a human anymore.” He whispered, his breath, his skin, burning hot against Cloud.

“I…” Cloud dragged in a breath. Tucked Sephiroth’s head more securely beneath his own, clinging with all his might. “I don’t–I don’t _care_!”

He pressed his cheek to Sephiroth’s hair, his brows twisting in misery, feeling Sephiroth’s hands cautiously tighten around him. Feeling the inhuman claws on his mauled right hand pressing against the back of his shirt.

“I don’t care what happens. You’re my _husband_ Sephiroth! I will _always_ be here for you. Human or not, no matter what happened, no matter what happens from here, I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving. I’m not.”

Sephiroth shuddered. His whole body tense and twitching. Cloud held him tighter. Clung to his hair, his head, as if he could hold him together through force.

“I’m scared.” Sephiroth breathed into Cloud’s shirt. “Cloud. Cloud, I’m…”

Cloud pressed closer. Crushed himself and Sephiroth together. Held him like he was losing him. Tangled his hands in too-long hair and held on for dear life. Held on as Sephiroth let out a broken sob against him. Held on as the awful, beautiful wings stretched and pulled the tight skin of his back.

“They’ll pull me apart to find out what happened.” Sephiroth gasped into Cloud’s shoulder.

Cloud tucked his head against Sephiroth’s, hiding in his hair, cradling him against his chest, rocking slowly.

“I won’t let them.” He promised softly. “Neither will our friends. The people coming… They just want to help, Sephiroth. And if any one of them tries to hurt you, I will _ruin_ them. I know I… I couldn’t protect you from this, but I won’t let you down again.”

The sun made the swirling gem-like parts of Sephiroth’s wings glimmer. Cloud only looked at them because he couldn’t stand not having his eyes on some part of his lover as Sephiroth folded in his arms, broken and agonized and afraid. Cloud held onto him with everything he was worth, and watched the sun glint in his wings.

Aerith couldn’t tear him away. Neither could the paramedics.

“Where he goes, I go.” Cloud said firmly, teeth bared.

Maybe it was the monstrous appearance of the man holding onto him. Shying behind his protective arms. Maybe it was the way his unnatural wings quivered as the blond stroked his hair. Rubbed his scalp and his shoulders ever so gently with his fingertips. Maybe it was the sight of them locked together, their wedding rings glinting.

No one tried to pull them apart again. They only asked that Cloud walk while they carried Sephiroth down the mountain.

That he did with good grace, staying right by Sephiroth’s side as the man trembled, face down on the stretcher. His unnatural wings drooped at his sides, twitching weakly.

Aerith raced to their lab. Raced to find answers. Cloud stayed with Sephiroth as they tried everything to slow the spread. To settle the glowing red in his eyes and stop the wings from inching out further from his back. To stop the poisonous looking webbing from crawling any deeper through him.

When they sedated Sephiroth, the spread slowed. So sedated he stayed.

And Cloud…

Cloud sat by his bedside, day and night. Kept his hands on him. Suffered and cried and waited and begged in the dark, to anyone and anything that might be listening.

* * *

Aerith’s cure was a godsend. She couldn’t fix him. Couldn’t reverse what had been done. But she had studied the meteor. Had sacrificed lab animals. Had struggled and studied and sobbed. Had called in experts and conspiracy theorists and colleagues and friends.

She couldn’t fix him, but she could draw the meteor’s infection out of his blood. Could test for it, and draw more from him, over and over, day after day. Could draw it from the holes in his hand that had never healed. She pulled the liters and liters of the dark, viscous stuff from inside him.

They had to set him up on a blood drip as well as the subcutaneous fluids that had kept him alive.

The day Aerith’s results came back clean, the day they removed the sedative from Sephiroth’s IV drip, Cloud didn’t bother with the chair at the bedside. He hunkered down on the floor, Sephiroth’s damaged right hand cradled between both of his, his body still gently laying face down to keep the tender alien wings from being crushed. That day, that night, Cloud barely blinked.

When Sephiroth’s eyes opened, glowing dull red, Cloud was kissing him before he could think better of it. And once Sephiroth oriented himself even remotely, once he’d twitched and failed and scrambled for purchase, he was kissing Cloud too.

And much, much later, they finally went home.

“This is impossible.” Sephiroth muttered, shimmying sideways through their apartment door, trying to coax his unsettling appendages into being _indoor_ wings. “As soon as they get those x-ray results figured out I’m having them removed. These things were not made for apartment life.”

As if in protest, his upper right wing knocked a picture off the wall, and Sephiroth scowled at it over his shoulder, pointing his mangled hand’s claw at it.

“You’re first.” He growled.

“Not for a while, please.” Cloud was breathless with light laughter. With relief. 

Sephiroth had come back to him over the days. Come out of the fog of sedatives and the haze of the meteor’s influence. Had come back to himself with his wry wit and good humor. He was fairly clearly repulsed by what had happened to his body, but he’d allowed Cloud to braid his unnaturally long hair. Had held still while they poked and prodded the wings to see if the pain had lessened at all with Aerith’s work.

It had. He still fairly clearly hated them. But he’d still let Cloud carefully touch them, sliding his fingers over the warm almost-flesh.

The dark webbing under Sephiroth’s skin no longer grew or shifted, but it had stayed. Scarred in place. Another mutation to live with.

“What a mess.” Sephiroth muttered, looking at himself. At the broken picture on the floor. It was one from their wedding. The two of them laughing at something, flushed and happy and together. The rueful smile on Sephiroth's face was like a sickly shadow of the photograph's laugh.

“Sephiroth.” Cloud said softly.

Sephiroth lifted his gaze to him, and melted just a touch. Cloud moved forward, catching Sephiroth’s cheeks gently. Staring deep into his red-lit eyes.

“You’re home.” Cloud whispered. “That’s all I care about. I’ll break all the pictures myself if it makes your wings happy.”

Sephiroth’s cheeks curved under Cloud’s hands. His smile was brimming with affection. That looks better, Cloud thought to himself with relief.

“Maybe let’s put a hold on the picture breaking and go to bed?” Sephiroth offered softly. “I know I’ve rested enough for about four years in the past few weeks, but…”

“Bed sounds great.” Cloud said, sliding his hands down to tangle his fingers with Sephiroth’s newly sharp hands. They still fit together perfectly, Cloud thought. The cool metal of the wedding ring still fit Sephiroth’s finger.

“Just please,” Cloud whispered. “Be there when I wake up this time.”

Sephiroth gazed down at him, changed but beautiful. Exhausted, but smiling again.

“I will never leave you like that again.” He swore.

And he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Sephiroth's movie reference at the beginning was to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera, which you should watch.
> 
> Next Chapter: Bar


	23. Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiny-but-effective bouncer Cloud Strife ought to know better. But the hot guy at the bar keeps offering to buy him drinks, and Tifa and Jesse seem to think he's alright, so... What's the harm?

[ _< For more of Tomo's art, click here!>_ ](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Cloud wasn’t exactly the perfect bouncer. He was short, a little scrawny looking, hardly battle-scarred or intimidating. But Cloud could end a fucking fight. Fists, feet, knives, bottles, guns--None of them even made him flinch anymore. He could choke out a man three times his size without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately most of the job was convincing people not to start trouble in the _first_ place.

Which was hard when you were five foot eight, sunny blonde, and sporting huge, guileless blue eyes.

Cloud took a proactive stance no his work. He wasn’t much good at being an intimidating bruiser, but in some ways that was better. Meant some shyer folks weren’t too anxious to risk coming in the first time. Tifa told him she thought his little ‘serious business pout' and overall 'cute' look were the reason so many women felt safe coming in.

He wore leather, of course. That was basically bouncer uniform, and if he wasn’t going to have the big muscles or bald head he was sure as hell going to have the leather. He spent his evening by the door, checking IDs, watching for anyone packing heat, anyone already sloshed and looking for trouble, anyone eyeing the ladies with a predatory eye. He got good at picking out the troublemakers. Sticking close to them till it was time to escort them out.

He followed Tifa’s rules about what constituted ‘trouble-making.’ He didn’t disturb the rowdy, the foolish, the poorly dressed, the crass. He watched for the handsy, the smarmy, the people who considered themselves wolves among sheep. People looking to start or finish fights.

After all, some of their best customers were weird and seedy and rowdy and loud. Without Tifa’s firm eye contact and slow head shake, Cloud would have tossed Cid out on his first night. Now Seventh Heaven wouldn’t be the same without him.

He was trouble, for sure. But so was Barret, and he was co-owner. Not to mention Jesse, Tifa’s bar backup, or Biggs and Wedge their kitchen guys. Or Tifa herself. And Cloud guessed he'd have to be added to the list too, for that matter.

It was hard not to be trouble of some kind or another when you gathered after closing every night to solidify your eco-terrorism group’s next move.

Cloud was sort of along for the ride on _that_ part of his work. At first he'd just been in it for the money. He’d needed a job, and been willing to turn a blind eye. When he finally joined up officially, it was for Tifa. But as the years passed, bit by bit, it started to be for all of them.

He was kind of meh on the whole 'save the planet' thing, but he trusted the judgement of the people around him. That was enough.

“Spiky,” Jesse greeted, grinning, from where she’d been snagging empty glasses off a table nearby. “You’ve got your game-face on. Who’re we dealing with?”

“Don’t know yet.” Cloud said, leaning one shoulder against the wall.

It felt like a tough pose, but Barret said it made him he looked like he oughta be working at the Honeybee. Cloud took it as a compliment. He knew some of the ladies at the Honeybee Inn, and he would not have put himself on their bad side for all the world. He was a fine fighter, but he was pretty sure any one of those ladies could have murdered him with a stiletto and a pretty sigh.

“Watching Silver over there at the bar?” Jesse guessed, following his gaze.

“He’s giving me bad vibes.” Cloud said, eyes narrowing at the man.

It was getting late in the night. New customers became less frequent around one thirty in the morning. But this guy had come strolling in like it was his first stop of a long night out. All smooth movements and calm nods and elegant gestures that Tifa seemed to interpret flawlessly into drink orders without the need for a verbal exchange.

“Hm...” Jesse said, canting a hip to the side, briefly matching Cloud’s pose and appraisal of the man. “Seems a little too cool for school, right?”

“Maybe I’m on the wrong track and he’s just a poet or something.” Cloud muttered to her. “You know how poets are.”

“Do I ever.” She said with a grin. “I work behind the _bar_ , Cloud.”

“Good point.” Cloud nodded. “I rarely have to actually hear the poetry.”

“Some of them are good.” Jesse said almost defensively. “Nothing wrong with being emotional.”

“Never said there was.” Cloud glanced over at her flushed face and averted his eyes quickly again. It was a poorly kept secret that Jesse harbored some feelings towards him, even though they’d worked out years ago that it was going exactly nowhere. Cloud had the sneaking suspicion that his being unattainable had only made the crush worse...

“Anyhow,” Cloud said, “I’ve got my eye on him. Just signal me if you need him gone.”

“He’s been fine so far.” Jesse said with a nod. “But I trust your judgement. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

She walked back to the bar, and Cloud watched the silver-haired man. Watched him tap on his phone and take slow, smooth sips of whiskey. Watched his hands and the drinks near him. Watched his posture and the way he responded when Tifa asked if he wanted another.

Overtly, there was nothing wrong. He kept his hands to himself and his own drinks, he wasn’t being odd with the girls, he was minding his business better than most of their customers did.

There was just something…

When the silver haired man turned towards him and met his eyes, Cloud almost balked out of sheer surprise. Most people didn’t bother noticing him until he inserted himself. Tifa rang the bell for last call, and the bar’s stragglers made their way up front. Cloud stayed locked in eye contact with the stranger, waiting. The man hadn’t turned away, but he also hadn’t gotten tense. He was only watching. When Jesse stopped by to check in, he turned to speak to her.

Cloud couldn’t hear them, but he saw Jesse lift her eyes to him and smile. It was a particularly impish smile. Cloud went ahead and heaved a preemptive sigh.

He wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Jesse motioned him over and poured two shots of whiskey.

Great. Another date setup. Awkward. He was working.

Still. It was Jesse. He pushed off the wall to walk over, keeping his pace even and calm.

“I’m at work, you know.” He said by way of introduction.

“And doing a great job.” Jesse said with a grin. “Like banging sticks together to keep the Midgar Bears away.”

“Ha ha.” Cloud said.

“Oh.” Said the man. Gods he was tall up close. Tall and _pretty_. Gold chains circled his throat, draped on his chest. His shirt was tantalizingly open. “You work here?”

“He’s our bouncer.” Jesse said, pushing the whiskeys across to them. “Don’t let his looks fool you, I’ve seen him take down five dudes in two minutes with a little applied effort.”

She punched her own palm and grinned. Cloud glowered at her. That was one time. And he’d been the only sober one. Hardly a fair fight.

“My apologies then.” The man was saying to Cloud, his drink held elegantly in his left hand. “I thought you were interested.”

“He is.” Jesse said, and walked off.

“Jesse.” Cloud hissed after her, scowling in annoyance.

“Presumptuous of me.” The man said. “I can only offer my apologies and hope you’ll accept the drink as an apology. I intended to buy it for you. See if you were interested in chatting as the bar closed down.”

Cloud looked him up and down. Inspected his tailored suit. His bright eyes. His manners as smooth as scotch and twice as smokey. There was something about him…

Don’t tell me I’m getting my job mixed up with my hots, he thought to himself, inwardly inspecting.

“I suppose I should—” The man started, reaching under the bar to collect his coat.

“No,” Cloud said abruptly, surprising himself more than the man. “No. I appreciate the drink, and it was totally understandable. The mix up. Sorry for staring. You have sort of a 'danger' vibe around you.”

“Thank you.” The man said, lifting his glass, as if it were the most obvious of compliments.

Cloud grinned despite himself and lifted his glass as well. They clinked together merrily.

“Name’s Cloud.” He said after his first sip. “So you know who you bought a drink for.”

“Name’s Sephiroth.” The man’s smile had only grown. Less charming and more true. It was a good look on him. “So you know who bought you a drink.”

“Haven’t seen you by before,” Cloud said. “Sorry for staring. If you come back I’ll remember that you didn’t break any furniture or any hearts.”

“You say that now.” Sephiroth said. “What if I have designs on breaking yours?”

“I think you’ll find it’s pretty tough.” Cloud said, though he couldn’t help the sharp grin that crossed his face.

Sephiroth hummed to himself, tilting his head, looking Cloud up and down.

“Yes.” He said softly. “I’d believe that. You are full of surprises.”

Cloud downed half of his whiskey to hide the way he blushed.

Damn it all. Jesse was getting the hang of his tastes…

Sephiroth finished his drink, speaking only occasionally. Commenting on the drink selection. The bar. The night. Cloud found himself drawn all too easily into conversation. It was… nice. Sephiroth didn’t ask much of him as a conversation partner. Cloud could say ‘yeah, it’s cool’ and not receive only a blank and unimpressed stare. Sephiroth, it seemed, preferred to keep things light and factual.

“Is there an upstairs?” Sephiroth asked, glancing up. “A basement?”

“We’re not a winery,” Cloud said, the lies easy and practiced. “No need for a basement. Back room’s big enough. But we do have a little upstairs office and some cold storage for the kitchen.”

“Hm.” Sephiroth said, looking up as if he might be able to see through the ceiling and onto the next floor. “It’s a good space.”

“Interested in architecture?” Cloud offered, far too knowledgeable about his limits to finish his drink right away, swirling the whiskey, letting the ice soften it for when he took his next sip.

“A bit.” Sephiroth said softly. “Perhaps just interested in a bar that has proven more than pleasant. I believe, however, that you are closing up for the night. I should be on my way.”

Cloud lifted his glass to him.

“Thank you for the drink.” He said. “Even if it was based on a misunderstanding.”

Sephiroth smiled at him, pulling his jacket from beneath the bar and slinging it over one of his shoulders carelessly.

“I’m not entirely convinced it was a misunderstanding, Cloud.” He said, that coy smile playing at the corner of his lips, his voice rumbling just-so in his chest to give Cloud the shivers.

He walked out with a wave to Tifa, leaving twenty gil for a tip. Cloud stared after him. Watched him go till he couldn’t see him anymore. Tried to tell himself he wasn’t looking at his ass.

“Hmm.” Tifa said, startlingly close to Cloud all of a sudden. “What a mysteriously big tip. I think maybe I ought to pass some of it to you, since you handled the flirting.”

“I wasn’t flirting.” Cloud said, dragging his eyes away from the empty doorway.

He was met with the disbelieving looks of the entire staff and Cid, who’d been pretending to sleep on the bar. Gods above, he hadn’t even noticed them watching.

“Just a little.” He muttered, and drank the rest of his free whiskey.

Sephiroth came back. The second time he was there the bar was crowded and Cloud was busy. He felt a rush of anxiety seeing him. A rush of obligation. But Sephiroth seemed perfectly happy to sit at the bar and chat quietly with Tifa and Jesse. Though Cloud feared what they might be saying.

When the bar was closing down that night, Sephiroth didn’t stick around to drag their closing out. Only shot Cloud a small smile and wished him a nice night.

“Come by again?” Cloud said. He meant it to be a generalized statement. It came out as a request instead.

“I will.” Sephiroth said, smiling.

He did. The next time Sephiroth stopped by Barret showed up out of nowhere. He stared at Cloud with a firm look, crossing his real and false arm.

“I’m at work.” Cloud complained.

“Take a break.” Barret muttered.

“Why are you—”

“Tifa asked.” Barret said, lifting his chin. “It’d be good for you.”

“Barret. No offense. Please don’t get involved in my sex life.”

Barret’s eyes widened and he stared down at Cloud fixedly.

“I ain’t.” He said. “I’m talkin’ about the _romance_! Hells but you’re soulless sometimes Spiky!”

Cloud flushed instantly, waving his hand at Barret to shush him, his face heating up. He escaped Barret’s snickering to slide in next to Sephiroth at the bar.

“I guess I’m being herded this way, so I might as well sit.” Cloud muttered, only feigning annoyance.

“Is that so?” Sephiroth said. “What a mystery.”

He lifted a hand towards the inside of the bar. Tifa high-fived him.

“You’re all terrible.” Cloud told them, but accepted the ginger beer Jesse passed him.

He wasn’t usually the type of guy who liked breaks but…

It was a good break hanging out with Sephiroth.

“For the record,” Sephiroth told him at the end of the night, “I’m interested. In you. I don’t want you to be unsettled by that. But I’ll stop pestering you at work if you’d prefer.”

“I mean,” Cloud said slowly. “It’s… I had fun. So… Maybe just… On one of my days off next time?”

“Just say when.” Sephiroth murmured. “I may stop by, but if you’re working, you never have to… You know. I’m perfectly happy at the bar with the other regulars.”

“If I didn’t think you were, I’d have kicked you out two weeks ago.” Cloud said, grinning.

Sephiroth winked at him and sauntered out the door. Cloud almost whistled after him, just to press his luck. Just to make his stance known.

He didn’t quite. But he did think about it. That was enough to leave him flushing all the way through Avalanche’s meeting that night.

Cloud learned a scattering of facts about Sephiroth in the days that followed.

He learned that he was a banker by day. Boring and respectable and strictly dressed. Learned that he wore gold at night, decked himself out, to feel free. To feel desirable. Cloud didn’t tell him he was. His mouth was too dry.

He learned that Sephiroth collected antique swords and watches. He was well off, but hated the job that gave him the finances to live the life he did.

“Dull.” Was the word he used the most, his eyes going flat and hazy every time it so much as came up. Cloud didn’t mention it unless it was pertinent. He preferred Sephiroth’s eyes filled with wild, brilliant intelligence.

He didn’t have much to share for his own part. Most of his life was his job and Avalanche. If not for his friends, he wouldn’t have much conversation at all. But he had stories to tell about meeting them, at least. And plenty of stories through the years about work.

He learned that Sephiroth liked stories that highlighted Cloud’s competence. He learned that Sephiroth leaned in when he was excited by what Cloud was saying.

He learned that Sephiroth smelled good. Smelled really good. He didn’t let himself think too much about that.

After a few weeks, he learned that Sephiroth wasn’t too fancy to be dragged out back into the ally and kissed senseless. Cloud had kissed him so fiercely it left their lips bruised. Had ended up panting into Sephiroth’s collar bone, both of them unable to bring themselves to go farther but not wanting the moment to end.

Sephiroth definitely wasn’t too fancy, Cloud thought, breath hot against Sephiroth’s necklaces and skin, one hand on Sephiroth’s shoulder, one on the side of his shirt collar, holding it open. In fact, from the way he was breathing and leaning against the wall, Cloud thought he had enjoyed it very much.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth whispered. “I shouldn’t…”

“Sorry,” Cloud breathed, a near hysterical giggle escaping him. “Sorry. I brought you out here to ask you out, like, officially. I just… I shouldn’t have…”

“Don’t.” Sephiroth murmured, his hand catching Cloud’s chin, drawing his gaze up to lock with Sephiroth’s. “Don’t.”

Cloud learned that Sephiroth could kiss like a movie star, and hide a hard on like a champion, wandering so easily back to the bar that no one but Cloud noticed the restrained tent in his pants.

Cloud found it hard to notice anything else.

It was only two days after that when it changed. Cloud perked up when he saw Sephiroth, bored of leaning on the wall trying to look intimidating. It was a slow night, and the only person worth of concern was one of their own. Yuffie had been trying to get a drink all night, nevermind that she was still a teenager…

“Cloud.” Sephiroth said when he walked in. “Do you think I can stay just a little after close tonight? To talk to you? And perhaps Tifa as well?”

“I mean,” Cloud said slowly. “Ask Tifa? But I’ll… I’m always here a little after closing.”

Sephiroth had nodded, looking haunted. He’d moved over to the bar, leaving Cloud to his work without another word.

Though Cloud watched him all night, he only saw the man drink his usuals, with two extra scotch and sodas thrown in towards the end. Though from Tifa’s concerned expression and gentle hand gestures, she was worried too.

It wasn’t every night Cloud couldn’t wait for Seventh Heaven to close. That night… That night he counted the minutes till last call, over and over and over.

Not even getting to toss out a creeper brightened his mood. And he usually loved that.

Every moment was an agony. A delay. He watched Sephiroth’s hunched back at the bar, and he waited.

Sephiroth was so quiet when they started saying good night that it was easy to forget he was there. Easy till the entire Avalanche crew turned to him en masse and descended like a flock of worried crows.

“Is everything okay?” Cloud asked first, sitting at Sephiroth’s side.

“Do we need to get ready to burn someone’s house down?” Tifa asked, only half kidding.

“Did something happen?” Jesse asked, all warm concern. “Do you need a place to stay?”

Sephiroth stared down at his hands on the counter. Fiddled with his ring.

“You all really care.” He said to himself, a half smile crossing his face. “Letting me stay after close… Offering to protect me…”

He swallowed so hard that Tifa reached for a glass, but he stopped her with a lifted hand.

“Listen.” He said softly. “Brick up your basement before tomorrow. Get your plans out. Vanish it.”

The whole room went utterly silent. Cloud felt the temperature drop. Felt the eye contact being made around him. The internal alarm bells ringing. He just watched Sephiroth.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.” Sephiroth whispered, staring at the counter. “I just can’t… You’re good people. You haven’t done anything wrong. At least not yet. They're planning to wait till you’re closed. Tomorrow. They’re planning to come in guns first.”

“Who…” Barret’s voice was terribly low. Terribly calm. Anyone who knew him knew you were safer when he yelled. “Do you work for?”

“I’m a government operative.” Sephiroth muttered. “It was just supposed to be work. Scope out the joint. Make connections. Learn what I can. I didn’t expect…”

“You son of a—” Cid started, half-raising off his stool.

Cloud didn’t even register getting off his own stool, ready to fight. He needn’t have worried. Tifa grabbed Cid and dragged him back into his seat. Cloud stood just a little behind Sephiroth, shaking.

“How much of it was work?” He asked, softly, heartbroken.

Sephiroth didn’t answer. Or maybe he couldn’t. He only hung his head, sitting at his usual seat at the bar.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. “They would ruin me if they knew I was so much as warning you. I don’t have anything concrete, so neither do they. I told them I suspected the leads were right, early on. That was before…”

“Sephiroth.” Tifa said softly.

Sephiroth lifted his head slowly to meet her eyes.

“Thank you,” She whispered. “For warning us.”

“Please just be safe.” Sephiroth whispered. “These people… They don’t care about your kids, or your friendships, or the reality of your plans. They’re trained to snuff out lives and smother resistance.”

“And you work for them.” Cloud said, numbly.

He saw Sephiroth flinch. Saw his eyes close as if in pain.

“If they don’t find anything you should be safe for a while longer.” Sephiroth offered. “Though you might consider re-varnishing the wood around the pinball machine. The change in wear gives it away.”

Tifa nodded slowly, her hands braced on the bar, her breaths carefully even.

“I’ll take it under advisement.” She said softly. “Now get the hell out of my bar.”

Sephiroth didn’t try to plead his case. Didn’t do anything but leave. Cloud didn’t look at him when he passed. He was staring at the wall, planning. Staring at the wall, furious. Staring at the wall.

He didn’t know if Sephiroth looked at him or not.

They turned out all the upstairs lights. They went down into the basement, one at a time on their secret lift. They grabbed what they could. Split it seven ways. Then Barret broke the mechanism, leaving it only a pinball machine with a slightly creaky floor.

When men with guns burst into their bar the next night, they found nothing. Nothing at all. Only terrified patrons and furious staff. Only a bouncer who looked like he might cry, but might kill them first.

They left shattered glass in their wake when they left, and Tifa was already pursuing legal proceedings against them.

Cloud just sat down in one of their booths and curled into a tiny ball.

Maybe some part of him had been wishing that Sephiroth was just out of his mind. Maybe some part of him had been wishing it was an excuse for the man to call things off. A wild story to avoid Cloud’s advances further.

But no. No. It was worse than that. Because Cloud still wasn’t sure what had changed his mind. Still wasn’t sure if it was their relationship, or his banter with the girls, or even just the drinks and atmosphere.

He wasn’t sure how much of it had been real.

* * *

Sephiroth sat in an office, filling out paperwork. Mission reports, reconnaissance, explanations for the failed raid based around his information.

“I was mistaken,” he wrote over and over again. “It was a mistake, I got carried away, I was wrong.”

And with each repetition it was tempting to come clean. Tempting to out that bar for the front it was. But those people… Those people with their friendly laughs and warm eyes and their kisses like breathing fire—

“The mission was based on incorrect information.” He wrote again. “I was wrong.”

His phone buzzed. He pulled it out, just to have anything other than this to do. It wasn’t a bank, not like his cover story, but it was dull. It truly and really was dull. When it wasn’t ruinous.

Cloud’s name stared up at him from the screen. One new message, it told him. Sephiroth braced for pain.

“Knew there was something fishy about you night one,” Cloud’s text message read.

Sephiroth stared down at it for a long moment. What was he supposed to say to that?

The second message wasn’t far behind.

“So want to get sushi and sort out what’s real?”

Sephiroth stared at the message. Thought about the danger it would put him in. Thought about his duty to the government. To their interests.

Thought of a tiny group of eco-terrorists with a pinball machine for a secret elevator and a pair of women behind the bar asking if he needed protection.

Thought of a blond bouncer full of surprises.

“Little worried you might be planning to kill me,” he responded, “but also I get off work at 8.”

“It’s a date!” Cloud’s message replied.

“The murder, or the sushi?” Sephiroth asked, smiling at his phone.

Cloud only responded with a laughing emoji. And Sephiroth…

Sephiroth loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Gender-bend (Though TBH it's more like 'Sailor Moon AU')


	24. Genderbend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth knows her transformation is foolish. She knows that it will endanger and humiliate her to be seen. So she wears the bulky, vicious armor that Shinra provides her.
> 
> Cloud still doesn't know why she recognizes Shinra's armored warrior, but she knows that when she looks at her, her heart swells. (And with that feeling comes a very finely tailored suit...)
> 
> *As much a Sailor Moon AU as a gender-bending one*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this universe Sephiroth and Cloud are ladies! If for any reason that is uncomfortable to you, no worries. You can hop right past this chapter and we'll see you tomorrow!

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

She never transformed outside. She was kept in dark and secret places while she changed. She would stand in small stone buildings, in metal cells, in too-cramped closets, and wait until no eyes were upon her.

Embarrassing, she’d been told. Shameful. So she only ever whispered the words that unlocked her power. Transformed as quickly and quietly as she could, then hastily locked on the armor Shinra had made for her. Silver gauntlets covered petal-soft gloves. Her sweet short skirt and sailor’s uniform locked under mako-treated steel. Her bare thighs and high boots obscured by tightly-fitted greaves.

When she was done only her face was left uncovered by the nearly skin-tight metal. She felt it clamping down on the delicate natural form of her magic, and tried to feel it as protection and not suffocation.

Shameful, she thought to herself every time she latched the armor on over the sweet green and white cloth. Mortifying. If anyone knew…

No one did. Only Hojo. He brought it up occasionally. Only to laugh at it.

Sephiroth always kept the armor clamped over her skin. Abandoned her sweet scepter behind locked doors in exchange for the swords they gifted her. Ignored the soft, ringing call that echoed in her blood and bones. That piece of her wishing to be anything but this.

Something else. Something more.

When the war in Wutai came, her true form grew harder to hide. But she was a perfect Soldier. She always found a way. Always found a place where no one could see the white-hot light of her change burn through her. Where no one could hear her soft words.

“Star prism power,” she would hiss, eyes closed in concentration, key cradled in her hands. Hating it. Needing it. “Make up.”

Every time she whispered the spell, she knew what else she ought to say. Her heart would cry out for her to speak words of justice and protection. Every time, she would push aside her foolishness and walk away. Shrouded in metal she shone on the battlefield, and wherever she went blood spilled behind her.

* * *

_Once there was a man who coveted the moon's power over his world. He built a basin lined in silver, and filled it with pure water. When he held it beneath the moon, so still and sweet and smooth, her reflection curled up inside to rest._

_He kept that reflection for himself. His precious fragment of the heavens. And over the years he twisted it, piece by piece, to his purposes._

* * *

She was a nobody. A talentless rank and file member of the infantry. One more empty face in a long long lineup of the same mask, over and over.

But the moment she saw _her_ …

Cloud Strife watched the heavily-armored warrior step out of the transport, and she _remembered_.

Cloud remembered another life, another world. A smiling face. A golden heart under silver lights. A blooming soul like a crystal.

When she snapped out of it, the troops were on the move without her. She had to run to catch up.

The vision didn't leave her. She knew now, and could never un-know. Knew that the armor covering her was wrong. Knew that once… Once they had been important to each other. The _most_ important to each other.

So Cloud made herself important again. Reached down inside herself and found something that felt more like the real her than anything before it.

And it came with a very nicely tailored outfit.

* * *

_“I don’t want to hurt anyone.” The reflection of the moon said softly, only slightly bigger than the basin of water now, but just as silver. Just as pale._

_“It's who you are.” The man lied coldly to the young reflection. “I will show you.”_

_And whether or not it was true initially, it became true with years of practice._

* * *

Sephiroth had almost taken her armor off when the shadow arrived. The figure was blond, dressed in blue, masked, smiling.

“I’ve been hoping to catch you.” The blond woman said, her voice warm and fond. “Gentle warrior, Sailor of Stars.”

“You have mistaken me.” Sephiroth said, and reached for her sword.

The woman in blue only laughed, and tossed whatever she held towards Sephiroth’s feet. Sephiroth's sword lashed out on instinct, even as the stranger vanished in a whirl of her cape. Sephiroth caught only a hint of her sad smile.

She looked down at her feet. Sticking out of the mud was a rose, slashed into two pieces. Broken petals littered the dirt. Sephiroth did not bend to retrieve the broken flower. She only stared a long moment, then turned away at last.

* * *

_He loved his his moon child as much as he could love anything living. The child was his perfect experiment. An embodiment of all the moon’s power, stripped of her guardian soul._

_Sometimes the moon's messenger animals would try to get close. Would try to convey a message or a warning. They would try to speak to hie precious reflection. So he taught the silver girl to fear and destroy them._

* * *

Cloud had never been more weary. Never felt more lost. She was constantly pulling double duty. As she crafted her other persona, she found it feeling more and more natural. Her suit, her mask, the rose that grew in her hand each time she transformed. But she could not stop being a member of the infantry. If she did, she'd never be able to get so close to Sephiroth again.

Cloud went to Sephiroth every night she could. Sephiroth never spoke much, but recently she had stopped drawing her sword. Stopped crouching into a battle stance. Now she only stared. Cloud took it as an achievement.

“Who are you?” Sephiroth asked one night. She looked weary that evening. Her heavy armor seemed all wrong on her willowy body. Cloud's memories had shown her in such a different light--all speed and elegance rather than brute force.

“I'm just someone who wants to see you happy.” Cloud said, smiling. “Someone close to you.”

She vanished as ever, before Sephiroth could get too good a look at her. But she paused in the shadows just long enough to watch Sephiroth bend down and pick up the rose Cloud had left her. She had never done that before.

Cloud forgot her aching bruises and her blistered feet. Forgot her stress and misery. All that mattered was the gentle woman Sephiroth should have been, the brutal killer she’d become, and the fragile rose held carefully between her armored fingers.

* * *

_“It’s suffocating me.” The moon child said, her voice already losing some of its inherent softness and gentility. She was becoming his soldier day by day._

_“It will protect you.” He said, and locked the armored pauldrons over her shoulders. “Better than that frilly foolishness you manifest on yourself. You should be ashamed. Going into battle looking like a weak, stupid little girl.”_

_All his training was paying off. She looked ashamed. His little moon did not speak again as he locked her into her new armor. She only stared at the ground, even as her breathing stuttered and stalled in fear._

* * *

Sephiroth found herself waiting for her masked companion each night. Found herself keeping the roses. The masked woman was as inconstant as the wind, but she was there so often now…

Some nights Sephiroth made an effort to take off her armor, shake off her transformation, and return to her day-to-day clothing in time. She didn't want the masked lady to see her in armor. She wanted to look human. Normal. Respectable, of course. Always respectable. But she wanted her masked lady to see her as a person. Not just a warrior.

“I love seeing you like this.” Her masked lady would murmur, gazing at Sephiroth with a smile. She never came close, always from the treeline near Sephiroth's tent.

“Tell me what to call you.” Sephiroth whispered.

“You can call me whatever you want.” She lifted a gloved hand, bowing to Sephiroth with a courtly elegance and a friendly smile.

“Be coy then, my Mask.” Sephiroth chuckled, the smile feeling foreign on her face. “I shall find your name one day, and learn who you are beneath your lovely disguise.”

“You would be disappointed, I fear.” Her Mask said, laughing.

Voices approaching. Time almost out.

“Come again to see me?” Sephiroth asked, taking a half step forward.

And tonight, her Mask stepped forward, and slid the rose into Sephiroth’s hand instead of simply throwing it to the ground. Behind the eyeholes her eyes winked, liquid and soft, but unreadable in the dim light.

“Always.” Her Mask whispered.

Sephiroth could have caught her. Could have _made_ her stay. Could have dragged the name from her lips.

She watched her slip away into the shadows instead, and did not allow herself to sigh.

* * *

_“I will need a new one.” The moon's reflection said to the man, dropping a shattered sword onto the desk in front of him._

_She was flecked with blood. Her silver hair dragged down out of the foolish pigtails that always appeared with her transformation. Her armor gleamed, black and silver and brutal, blood glinting across it like jewels._

_The man looked at the piece of the moon he had captured, and he was happy._

* * *

Cloud almost hadn’t come. She was deathly tired, and hadn’t realized until too late that she had left her mask behind. She almost turned back to retrieve it. But it seemed... Useless. Foolish. Sephiroth wouldn't know her bare face any more than her masked one. In fact, she'd probably be LESS familiar without the mask on. She was always wearing a helmet in the ranks, after all. Sephiroth didn't know her.

So she went to Sephiroth maskless before she could lose her nerve. Seeing the lovely silver warrior was her light in the endless days of battle. And she was beginning to believe it was the light in Sephiroth’s days too.

Cloud did not find her relaxed and smiling tonight. She found her sitting outside her tent, waiting. Her silver armor was caked with dirt. Or maybe blood. Her silver hair tangled and snarled through the armor and its joints.

“My mask.” Sephiroth said wearily, barely lifting her head.

“My princess.” Cloud whispered. She went to one knee before Sephiroth, forgetting all worries about anonymity. “What have they done to you?”

“Something is wrong with me.” Sephiroth replied, her voice hollow, her beautiful green eyes so tired. “There is something wrong inside me every day, every…”

She silenced herself. Closed her eyes. Her lashes were so dark against her pale cheeks. Cloud longed to kiss them. She stayed kneeling before her instead, her heart breaking for Sephiroth’s pain.

“You can tell me.” Cloud whispered. “I will write your secrets in my heart. Then even if I were to be killed, the killers would destroy your secrets along with me.”

Sephiroth cracked a smile like she thought it was sweet. Or maybe stupid. It was hard to tell.

“I feel,” she said at last, “that there is something else I am meant to be. I have felt it so, so long now.”

Cloud watched her a long moment, sitting there covered in dirt and blood. Gazing downwards, always. She rose from her knee and offered both her hands down to Sephiroth.

“I can show you.” Cloud whispered. “If you want.”

* * *

_The moon’s bitter tears dragged at the oceans. Pulled the tides higher and fiercer. Her entire court had fallen apart at the loss of her reflection. Her daughter. Her child. She had torn herself apart with the sorrow of it._

_She looked down upon the world always now, circling, searching for the piece of herself she had lost. She had trusted a mortal and let her child sleep in his silver bowl. And now, somewhere, her daughter suffered._

_She sent animals, emissaries, allies. She lost them all. Many to the very child they'd gone to save. She waited for her daughter to stand by the water and look up to the moon. To ask a question she could answer. To call out to her, even once._

_But her poor daughter had been broken by the one who stole her long before she was allowed outside again._

_The moon had nearly given up. Then, by chance alone, she found the Familiar one. She'd known her once. A millennia ago Gaia had shaped a piece of stone into a woman. She had sent her in peace, like a love letter from the planet to her moon. The moon remembered that little stone one well. She had been as lively and warm as the planet she hailed from._

_She remembered how much her daughter loved that Gaia stone, with her blue suit and her lace mask._

_So though the moon could not speak to her child, she spoke to the reborn Gaia stone. Taught her the powers she'd once had, though she was new to them and afraid. She watched her decide without the moon even asking to draw Sephiroth from the darkness. Watched the two of them circle one another, a dance that the moon had danced for so long with Gaia._

_She waited. And in time the stubborn, loving Gaia stone brought the moon’s broken daughter to her._

* * *

“It’s alright,” her Mask was saying, a hand held out towards her, backing into the water. Was it right, Sephiroth wondered, to still call her ‘Mask’ when her face was bare under the pale moonlight?

“The water’s shallow and still,” her Mask continued. “We’re only here for the reflection.”

“The reflection?” Asked Sephiroth, eyes fixed on the water. She did not look up. There was something above her. Something weighing down. There always, always was.

“Trust me,” her Mask urged. “I couldn’t hurt you if I tried.”

Sephiroth's armor was not supposed to get wet. But she was still transformed beneath. Still all light and power held together with silk. Contained in steel. She could not remove it.

She felt so…

Sephiroth stepped into the water, and held her hand out to take her Mask’s.

“Don’t be afraid,” the masked lady was saying, as if she could feel Sephiroth's fear. “I would never hurt you, Sephiroth.”

Sephiroth believed her.

“Look down.” The woman murmured. Her eyes were bright and shining. Blue, Sephiroth saw at last. Bright blue. Her face looked younger without the sharp edges of her disguise. Sephiroth still did not know her. But she believed her.

She would never hurt her.

Sephiroth looked down.

* * *

_My daughter, whispered the moon at last. Have you finally come to see me?_

_Daughter? Her broken reflection asked, silver and sorrowful. There was such corrosion on her. Such blood._

_They have twisted you for their wants, the moon whispered, reaching out her light to touch her daughter’s face. To stroke her brow. Her cheek. They have made a weapon of you._

_I was always a weapon, her daughter said, heedless of the tears in her eyes. Heedless even as they spilled down her cheeks._

_No, the moon whispered only. No. Her shine was a kiss against her daughter's forehead. A pull on the tide within her. It was all she could give her. Memory._

_Her little champion of mercy. Her warrior of kindness. Her Sailor of Stars._

* * *

Cloud staggered away as the moon caught her daughter in a blinding embrace. She covered her eyes, stumbling back from the blazing light of it. The unbearable heat. Sephiroth was a beacon. A peaceful, floating, twisting figure. Cloud forced her eyes open, just a touch, to see the silver-bright armor melt away from her body. It flowed into the shallow water, and hardened into a reflective surface beneath the water's surface.

A basin of water with a silver lining, holding a reflection of the moon.

The light burst into a thousand pinpoints of shining, glimmering mist, and Cloud jerked her eyes off the melted metal.

There was Sephiroth. She was resplendent.

The blood had melted away with the armor. No more was she heavy with death and cruel steel. Now her hair spooled around her, silver streaks in the moonlight. Her green and white sailor suit and skirt made Cloud’s heart ache with memory. With adoration.

Sephiroth looked vulnerable at last. And she was all the stronger for it.

At her chest a green gem glowed, beaming, illuminating the night as the white light of the moon faded. Cloud watched the green streamers that had transformed her slide back within the gem, granting her the raw power of the moon princess. Watched Sephiroth hover in the air, eyes closed, head tilted back, her long limbs extended as if trying to touch the sky.

She was not exactly as Cloud remembered her. Her clothes had changed. There were hints there of what her captors had made her. Pauldrons, bracelets, bands of metal around her thighs, the shining low heels of her boots.

Sephiroth started to sink through the air, her hair twisting around her. Her eyes were still closed, and she wore an expression of peace that Cloud had never seen on her face before. She was beautiful...

Cloud forced herself to move. Stepped closer, onto the gleaming remains of the armor as Sephiroth sank back towards the shallow pool, glowing like a goddess. Like the princess she was.

Cloud lifted her hands to catch Sephiroth’s, and held them gently as Sephiroth drifted back down to Gaia with her.

“You look beautiful like this.” Cloud whispered despite herself. “You look so beautiful, Sephiroth. Did she answer your questions?”

“Yes.” Sephiroth her voice was clear and ringing, only the tips of her boots touching the water. “Yes. My Gaia stone. I remember now.”

“I’m so glad.” Cloud whispered, holding Sephiroth’s hands a tighter. She wasn't a stone anymore. Not as she had been before. But then, Sephiroth herself was flesh and blood now. She was not a reflection anymore. They were both something different. Something new.

Sephiroth held Cloud's hands in return, tight and shaking.

When she opened her blazing green eyes at last, they all but gleamed in happiness.

“I finally understand.” She said, and Cloud could only hold her hands as Sephiroth's tears of relief and sorrow fell in crystal raindrops to join the water beneath them.

At last, Sephiroth's boots sank down through the last few inches of water. She could not stand, and sank to her knees after. Her hair, her ribbons, her clothes settled around her. Cloud followed down. Her clothes soaked through at once. She didn't care.

All around them danced the moon’s reflection.

“I don’t know what to do now.” Sephiroth confessed, dazed. “Part of me wants revenge. For what they’ve done to me. But I fear that’s the part of me that they made. I don’t know what to do.”

“There’s no need to know yet.” Cloud held Sephiroth's hands as tightly as she could. “You are not alone, my princess. My Sephiroth.”

“My Mask.” Sephiroth's eyes fixated on Cloud's face, tracing up and down, following her cheekbones, her eyes, her lips. “Tell me your name on this world.”

“It’s Cloud.” She said, smiling softly. “I am no one at all here.”

“Neither am I now.” Sephiroth whispered, smiling as she dropped still salt tears into the pool to dance with her mother's shining image.

* * *

_There was a man who coveted the moon. Who played at holding her reflection hostage. Who thought himself stronger._

_There was a broken reflection that was crafted into a knife by a cruel man. That understood only brutality, pain, and blood._

_There was a moonshard knife who learned better, and turned her blade on the one who forged her. She drew blood with cruelty one last time._

_Then the knife surrendered her sharpness, though it frightened her. She took the hand of the one beside her, and tried to let herself be loved back into her true shape._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Wreck-it-Ralph AU  
> (I don't know. It was day 25 of writing a story a day. Things were getting weird.)


	25. Children's Movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best thing about their game being left untouched for a few months? The player hadn’t advanced the story far enough for them to loose anyone. Sephiroth and Cloud chat about things to come at the Sim’s poolside.
> 
> *Set in the Wreck-it-Ralph universe*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay my friends! Office job in the time of COVID-19 is a nightmare.
> 
> Only five more stories to go in this AU challenge!

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Sim city was about as far from Midgar as a city could get. Sprawling and busy, sure. But without complexity, or poverty, or amoral science departments. It was basically a world made entirely of suburbs. No rotten pizza, no dying Junon, no ruined North Corel.

That said, here was no doubting that the buildings and walkways and businesses in the sims world were...Strange. Not to mention that it was all different every time they went.

Cloud had never been terribly good at speaking Simmish. He had been told it was all about really meaning what you were saying. Keep it simple, and focus more on the meaning than the sounds you make. But Cloud was kind of bad at talking in general, and he was particularly bad about saying what he meant. Especially when he tried to mean anything that was less than dire.

The whole crew had been visiting the Sims world a lot recently, because their own game was inactive. Stranded in time, trapped in disc one. He knew on some level that if the game progressed, if they got to disk two, things would change for him. More than that, HE would change. He couldn’t remember at the moment. It was just beyond him--an itch in his mind that he could never scratch. Information about himself he just didn’t have the programming to access. Tifa knew some of it, and he knew she’d told him before, but the understanding always drifted away, like a daydream.

He’d stopped reaching for it decades ago. Stopped fighting the feeling of confusion. He knew what he needed to know. Remembered what was important. His friends, his found family. His new purpose. Whatever happened past that fuzz in his head, he knew they were there for him. Whatever came, he knew they stayed with him. And sometimes that was awful. Sometimes it was knowing that they were getting close to losing Biggs and Wedge and Jesse.

Sometimes it was knowing the next time they were played, Aerith would be gone.

For the moment though…

For the moment they had been plugged in untouched for months. They weren’t being played, but they’d been left to their own devices, free to wander. And best of all…

Best of all, it was so early in their story. So early. Biggs and Wedge and Jesse were still alive, still safe. And Aerith…

Losing her was so far away.

Cloud looked over at her from where he was sitting at the edge of the Sim’s swimming pool. She was with Tifa, leaning against her side. Cloud didn’t eavesdrop much, but he saw the little images appearing over their heads as they talked. How their friendship could still be increasing after all these years he didn’t know.

He leaned back on his arms, trailing his feet through the water. There was a sun in the sky, which was still charming to him after all this time. The beautiful set-pieces of the iron sky of Midgar were as familiar to him as breathing, but when he was free to wander his home game he could see that it was there only in bits and pieces. A stairway here, a street there, with nothing on the other side. Only crumbled in-between bits that were almost-but-not-quite world.

Cloud let out a slow breath, watching his friends. Not looking too closely at their conversation bubbles. They had come this far together by not prying or picking at each other’s scabs. They were their own people, and they shared things in their own time. But Cloud loved seeing them like this. In the green sunshiny hard, relaxed and safe and happy.

Mostly happy.

Cloud felt his expression morph into a rueful smile as he spied his in-game obsession, constant enemy, and out-of-game lover. Sephiroth was standing by the grill, a hand on his hip, wearing those damnably tight black swim pants. His expression would have said everything even without the ‘Unpleasant Conversation’ marker hovering over his head.

Cloud shouldn’t have been surprised, Sephiroth rarely got along well with the Sims families. Something about their interests and his not aligning. Cloud didn’t share the problem when he managed to have a coherent conversation. He quite liked Dark and Cousin Special Agent. Daytrader unnerved him though.

“Sephiroth!” He called, lifting his hand to cup his mouth, waving with his free hand. Following the rules of the game always made things work better, and the gestures were half the communication system.

He saw intense eyes cut towards him. Watched Sephiroth give a small bow to Dark, excusing himself. And then he was treated to the vision of Sephiroth, the nightmare, the calamity’s son, the enemy of enemies, wandering towards him around the pool, cautiously eyeing the ladders into the water.

“Bets on how long the ladders last?” Sephiroth asked as he approached.

“Until someone jumps in of course.” Cloud chuckled.

“Inevitably someone will.” Sephiroth said, eyes on Tifa and Aerith and their drinks. “Those ladies have got to stop smuggling alcohol here. The sims have terrible tolerance.”

“It’s fine.” Cloud said mildly. “They’ve got the book of life pulled out on the kitchen counter inside. Should let us resurrect anyone who makes particularly bad choices.”

“Ever think of stealing it?” Sephiroth asked, in a way that should have been a joke and almost wasn’t.

“Hm.” Cloud said, kicking his feet in the water. “You wanna sit with me for a while?”

Sephiroth didn’t reply aloud. He sat at Cloud’s side though, sliding his feet into the pleasantly cool water. He leaned back, mirroring Cloud, looking up at the sky.

“What’s eating you?” Cloud asked, swinging his legs back and forth slowly. "You're tenser than usual. I don't even have to look at your mood bar."

“It's nothing." Sephiroth said flatly, then glowered at Cloud only lifted his eyebrows at him. With a sigh Sephrioth elaborated. "Just… Knowing this won’t be forever. Whoever’s out there, they’ve beaten the game five times, Cloud. Soon they’ll move us forward.”

“Sephiroth…”

“I know. I’m not going to break any rules, Cloud. I wouldn’t do that to you. You earn your victory. Every single time.”

“I know it’s hard on you.” Cloud said, trailing his feet through the water. “It’s a lot. But Sephiroth, look around you. Around us.”

He waited, eyes on Sephiroth. Sephiroth stared up at the sun a moment longer before realizing Cloud was waiting for him. He forced himself to glance around, and Cloud waited till Sephiroth sent him a bewildered look before continuing.

“The reason you don’t get along with the sims,” Cloud said softly. “The reason we all have a hard time talking to most of the other games, the reason we’re all so different… Our _story_ is different. It’s harder than some of these other games, sadder and more... Real. But I think it’s worth it.”

Cloud tried not to watch Sephiroth as he spoke. He kept his eyes on the pool water, watching it move.

“Not that--Not that I'm okay with it!” He amended quickly. “Aerith dying. Everything that happens. Nothing could be worth that. But it’s not like it’s just… Just cruel. It’s not unrelenting. It’s just how it is. The choices we make. The people we are. The things we decide.”

“I’m going to miss this.” Sephiroth whispered. “That’s all. When it all changes. I’ll miss being here. I’ll miss all of you being so happy.”

Cloud watched him a moment before leaning forward. He scooped water up in one hand and flung it towards Sephiroth, grinning. He watched the warrior recoil, hand lifted to guard against the splash, caught somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

“Enjoy it with me then,” Cloud insisted. “We have time before Disk Two. And even if they do start playing, we have time before the Temple of the Ancients. You still have president Shinra to look forward to killing and everything.”

“Hm.” Sephiroth’s smile did perk up at that thought. “Cloud… I understand. If you want to spend this time with someone else.”

“Hush.” Cloud said. “I see them every time. Talk to them and stay with them. But I never see you in the game. Not like this. Only during the moments in our Nibelheim mission, back in the day. Some days I miss being a Soldier.”

The way Sephiroth’s smile changed when he said that was something Cloud didn’t quite understand. It made the ringing wrongness in his mind awaken. But it did seem like his words had lifted some of the weight from the man.

“You’re a good villain.” Cloud assured him after a moment, placing a hand on his shoulder. “And none of us hold it against you, Sephiroth. Not anymore. We’ve all been together too long for that.”

“You know I’d change it if I could.” Sephiroth said, leaning against Cloud quietly.

“Of course I know that.” Cloud said, leaning against him firmly. “I wouldn’t be a fuzzy-minded cross-dressing mess for the first third of our story.”

“You look good in that dress.”

“Oh, I know, that’s why I keep it. Did you know I’m still carrying it in our final fight? It’s in my pack.”

Sephiroth snorted, then broke into a grin, ducking his head. Cloud watched the Sims emerald indicator over his head shine. A little image of a green man with plus marks appeared next to it, hovering there a moment. An indication of friendship rising. A little more than that, Cloud thought, laughing softly to himself. He couldn’t help the hearts that floated off of him.

He held his palm out, summoning up the little interaction menu, and selecting flirt, letting the game’s programming make its suggestion.

“You’re so pretty.” Cloud said. Not in those words, because Simmish didn’t work so simply as that. It was a jumble of sounds, strung together, nearly words. But the meaning was always there.

Sephiroth shot him a wry look and opened his own menu. Covered it with his body as he selected what he would respond with.

“I truly think you are the strongest man I have ever met.” Sephiroth said, and instantly started to flush slightly.

“Did you pick 'flatter'?” Cloud asked, eyes on the sky to keep from blushing brighter.

“I picked ‘heartfelt compliment.’” Sephiroth admitted in a murmur.

Cloud let out a brief burst of laughter, grinning. Then he grabbed Sephiroth by his shoulders and dragged him into the pool with a splash and a shout. Predictably, the ladders vanished. But Cloud wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Selkie AU


	26. Selkie

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Everyone in town knew that the silver-haired fisherman who lived by the ocean’s edge was a changeling. They didn’t say it aloud, of course. It was the twenty first century. Things like changelings were old-fashioned myth. Everyone would have scoffed if they ever brought it up aloud. Even just thinking about him when not in his presence it was easy to scoff at the idea. At first. **  
**

But whenever someone got close they could see it clearly. It shone off him, bright as the lighthouse. He was not normal. Had never been normal. Not since he was a silent silver-haired strange-eyed infant.

Some say it broke his mother, seeing the false child left in place of her own. Some said she was broken long before from a loveless marriage and life. It was widely whispered that she had never held her changeling son. Not once. That she had known from the very first moment that he was not really hers, and wandered into the hungry woods search of her little boy.

That she had left the changeling with her loveless husband and gone to face the fey.

They were stories whispered over late-night drinks. Fears shared quietly between expectant mothers. Horror stories whispered to naughty children. The murmurs always silenced when Sephiroth walked through town, his silver-bright hair shining. His strange eyes, so widely spoken of in his absence, were carefully avoided.

He spoke little--as cold and distant as his father before him. He did not come courting any of the young ladies his age. Did not come into town at all unless it was to sell. He oozed fey wildness everywhere he went.

But he was not entirely unloved in his town. He caught good fish, he never told a lie, and there seemed to be no malice around him. He was simply quiet. Simply an oddity. A small discomfort in their little town. A bruise that they couldn’t help collectively prodding, gently, every now and then.

No one knew where the blond man came from. He simply appeared without reason at the changeling's side one morning, and never spoke of his arrival. All they knew were his wide blue eyes, his cautious smile, the way he moved with a natural grace but an eternal caution. The gentle grace of his hands, and the way he shone when he danced to lilting music in the streets.

All they knew was the way the changeling smiled for him, as if he had been enchanted.

* * *

“My love.” Said Sephiroth from the door.

Cloud jolted in place, his back straightening and his hand lifting swiftly. But he did not turn towards Sephiroth. He stayed where he had been, in the mostly-dark kitchen. His threads of seashells dangled from the ceiling and Sephiroth’s houseplants were freshly watered from his care.

“You are looking at the ocean again?” Sephiroth asked, walking over slowly.

“I’m sorry.” Cloud said, staring out the window at the waves. His look was haunted. Obsessed. Sorrowful. Sephiroth pitied him, and hated him for it. Just a little bit.

“Do you dislike it here with me so much?” Sephiroth asked, carefully wrapping an arm around his lover, afraid of the answer.

“No,” Cloud murmured. “No, not at all. I’m happy here, Sephiroth. I like this town, and I like the land, and I love you. I just… I want to go home.”

“I know.” Sephiroth murmured, and leaned down to hug Cloud around his shoulders, as kindly as he could.

“Will you look for my skin again?” Cloud asked, lifting his hand to rest his fingertips lightly on Sephiroth’s arm.

“I look for it often.” Sephiroth murmured, leaning his cheek against Cloud’s hair, his eyes fixed on the hated ocean, glad Cloud could not see his expression. “But yes, my Cloud. I will look again tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” Whispered Cloud, and Sephiroth all but felt his attention return to the ocean rather than remaining with him.

Sephiroth tried to pretend the way he tightened his arms was comfort rather than possessiveness.

* * *

He first saw Cloud on the night of a gibbous moon. He’d damaged his boat against the rocks of the shore. Stayed out late repairing it, patching with his own two hands what he could not trust anyone else to fix.

He’d spotted Cloud out in the ocean waves on his way home, and had hesitated. Waiting, watching. If it was someone in danger, would he help them? He wasn’t sure. It would be easier to simply go home to his empty house, and drink until the ghost of his father faded from his side.

But the man in the water was not drowning, and before he could stop himself Sephiroth was moving closer. Silent and careful, watching the young man. Muscular and beautiful, the stranger walked through the shallow waves with his hands spread, bathing in the moonlight.

Sephiroth watched him skip a wave, lightly. Heard the soft tide of his laughter. Sephiroth watched him, lips parted, and felt connected in a way he never had before.

He stepped forward before he could think better of it, and the soft crunch of his boots in the sand drew the stranger’s attention. Sephiroth lifted his hands, expecting fear. But the young man only glanced towards the rocks behind himself once, then turned back to Sephiroth, smiling.

“Hello.” He said, his voice _almost_ human, but a note too sweet, too bright. Something more.

“Hello.” Sephiroth said in return, his weariness forgotten, his broken boat put out of his mind and his ghost-filled home with it. “Are you not cold?”

“Rarely.” The man said, his hair bright in the moonlight, his skin faintly freckled across his shoulders from this close. “It is not so cold as all that, even in the water. Would you like to join me?”

“Would you like the company?”

“I often come to this beach, but there is never anyone here. I always hoped for an encounter with a mysterious stranger.”

Sephiroth smiled and stripped out of his shirt, his shoes, rolled his pants up over his calves and stepped into the freezing sea water.

“As have I, I think.” He said.

He was in love long before he even knew Cloud’s name. Wanted him even before that.

“Will you come home with me?” He asked, not feeling the goosebumps covering his body, not caring that the moon was aging fast and soon the jealous sun would rise.

“I can only stay one night.” Cloud said, lifting a finger. “But I would gladly spend it with you, if you wanted.”

Sephiroth had placed a hand on his back. Had guided him towards his home, so close to the shore where they had roamed in the water.

He looked back only once. His eyes were drawn to an oil-smooth sealskin laying neatly on the rocks, guarded only by the ocean and moon.

* * *

Sephiroth could not lie. From what he had heard, what he had read, it was because he was not human. The fey were creatures of their word. Truth and promises were sacred to them as nothing else was. He had become more convinced every day of his life that the whispers in town were right, and he was one of theirs.

So he looked for Cloud’s coat the next day, like he had promised to.

But the fey were also tricksters. Also selfish. And in those things Sephiroth also saw himself.

For he had not made any promise to Cloud about returning the cloak if he saw it. And better still, Cloud only ever asked if Sephiroth had found it. Which Sephiroth never had. He could not find that which was not lost. He knew where the sealskin was, and kept it safely guarded.

It was in the details that he kept his lover. Captive but happy, he thought. Wasn’t that enough?

He looked inside the storage bench on his boat, and had fulfilled his promise to look for the skin. He slid his hand over the shining coat once more, giving it only a fleeting, brief touch.

It was only sometimes, he told himself as he locked the skin away once more. Cloud only looked at the ocean sometimes. Perhaps more frequently these days, yes. But he still danced, still laughed, still ate and sang and lived. And in doing so, gave Sephiroth a life he had never hoped for. Happiness and security. A house no longer filled only with ghosts.

Wasn’t that worth a little sacrifice?

He knew the answer. He did it anyway.

He told Cloud that night that he had not found his coat. Not on the beach or in the waves. Not in his seining nets, or in his lines. He had looked, he said, but not found it.

“Thank you for trying.” Cloud said, summoning a smile though it looked as if it pained him.

“You must regret it." Sephiroth said. “Coming home with me that night.”

“No.” Cloud said, shaking his head. “Not ever.”

Sephiroth took him to dance and drink at the local pub that night. There was a hammer dulcimer and a jaunty guitar, and dancing with Cloud while the townspeople laughed at their odd couple almost drowned out the guilt.

Almost.

* * *

“Your mother was never happy here.” Sephiroth’s father said some nights. “You were the last straw, that’s all.”

But other nights he would say

“You killed her, you know. You killed your mother.”

And some other nights

“You are not our son. You are not even human. I should burn you to spare the town your ill fortune.”

But he had not burnt him to death in the town square. Sephiroth had grown up grateful to be allowed to live, until he learned to be bitter that he had been so endangered at all.

He often wondered what had happened to the human child he had replaced. He hoped they were happy. He was not. He often wondered what had happened to his fey parents, if he had them at all and was not some creature rolled out of bone and moss.

He hoped they were half as miserable as he was.

He learned to fish and to fear the ocean. He learned to sell his goods and to fear his buyers. He learned to hate his home and the man who was slowly rotting inside it. He longed for silence.

And then his father had died, and the house had been silent at last. Sephiroth found he hated that too.

Recently, however, his home had been resurrected. It was never dead. Never angry. It seemed to Sephiroth that Cloud had tamed all the angry corners of his life with gentle attention.

* * *

“Please,” Cloud had been gasping that first morning, after the night that should have been his only visit, “please. You have to help me find it. Someone must have taken it. They must have.”

“If they did, they are close.” Sephiroth said, and it wasn’t a lie. Just a truth hidden behind assumption. He had hated to see Cloud so distraught. Hated the wetness of his eyes. The tremor in his hands. The desperate scratches on his arms and legs where he must have scrambled over the jagged rocks searching for his skin.

“Come back inside.” Sephiroth urged softly. “You’re hurt, and now you must be a little cold. Let me feed you. Clothe you. Let me help you.”

“Thank you.” Cloud whispered, and the ache of his gratitude made Sephiroth’s teeth sore. But he only smiled past the discomfort and drew Cloud inside.

* * *

Stealing Cloud’s coat without leaving his side was not the first proof he had of the villager's whispers about him. He had been strange all his life. Had grown more powerful the longer he lived. He did not know his limits now, but it was only because he had no need to try.

He often walked at night while his body lay still. He wandered in and out of bars and houses and gambling dens. Had done it since he was ten. He'd listened to people speak of him and his father in hushed tones. Had helped those who spoke kindly of him win. Had soured the luck of those who displeased him.

It was a small and petty thing to do, but he did not dare work greater magic than that. There was a ledge inside him. A jagged cliff of a feeling. He liked to walk up to it. Liked to peer over the edge.

But he did not want to jump.

The night Cloud came home with him with him, handsome and supple and smooth, Sephiroth had left his body curled with Cloud’s and had walked out of himself onto the beach. There was intention and purpose in his wander that night. Though he had never touched anything real while outside himself before, that night he had lifted the seal skin from the rocks and folded it reverently. Then he walked with even pace to his boat, leaving no mark, making no sound.

It may as well have been the tide that stole the skin, he told himself as he slid it into hiding in his boat. After all, he and the tide both were forces of nature. The world was subject to their whim.

Perhaps, he tried to tell himself, Cloud had secretly wanted to stay. Leaving his coat out on the rocks unattended to sleep with a stranger on a moon-bright night.

He wanted to believe it.

* * *

He found Cloud weeping at the shore the day after he found him staring at the kitchen table. Found him sitting still, empty, disconsolate. He was not touching the water. Not skipping waves or dancing. Not naked and bathing in moonlight.

He was only sitting there in the sand, watching the tide go out, weeping bitterly.

“My Cloud.” Sephiroth whispered, going to his knees beside him. “Is it so painful for you?”

“Sephiroth.” Cloud reached out. Gripped Sephiroth’s shirt blindly. Held him tight and close. “My friends are calling for me. I can hear them, just beyond the waves. They will come to try and save me. I do not want them to come. They may get trapped here as well.”

“You would not be so lonely then.” Sephiroth said softly, already making plans.

Cloud’s grip on Sephiroth’s shirt tightened. Almost violent. Almost knowing.

“It is killing me.” Cloud whispered. “I love you. I love our home. I love this city. But it is killing me. I have to swim again. I would drown as I am, but I fear I cannot resist the call much longer. I have to swim again, Sephiroth. Even if it drowns me.”

“We can move further from the ocean.” Sephiroth said. “If it will keep you safer.”

Cloud only shook his head, turning to Sephiroth with those wide eyes. That wounded expression.

“It is not the ocean calling.” He said softly. “It is my heart. I am not a man, Sephiroth. No matter how long I stay here, I am still a seal.”

That night, Sephiroth went walking. He stood by his own bed a long time. Looking down at his body. At the way he held Cloud. How Cloud had folded into his grip. How they fit together. How Cloud had buried his face against Sephiroth’s shoulder.

I’m all he has, he thought. And how he loved that thought. How he hated it.

He thought of his father. Covetous and ruinous. He thought of his mother, a woman he had never met. He wondered whether it was him or his father who had driven her away, or driven her mad, or killed her.

He wondered how long it would be before he killed Cloud.

He turned and walked out of the house, through the walls, down the beach.

He saw dark eyes watching him from the ocean. He knew they could see him, though he was little more than a dream. Cloud would have been able to see this form as well if he’d had his skin. If he were not trapped in this half-life.

“Come no closer.” Sephiroth told the selkies in the surf. "I will send him home to you tomorrow."  
  
They bared their teeth at him like brandished knives. But they seemed trapped somewhere between killing him or fleeing his presence.

He went to his boat, and he pulled out the seal skin. He draped it over one arm, reverently folded. He thought about scuttling his boat right then and there. Ending every piece of his life in one awful night.

He only walked away instead, and carefully tucked the sealskin underneath the bed. Ready for tomorrow.

Just one more morning.

* * *

Cloud was singing when Sephiroth awoke. A soft and bright song from the kitchen. The sound of frying bacon. Of an egg hitting the pan. Of water boiling for tea.

Maybe tomorrow would do, Sephiroth thought desperately, staring up at his ceiling. Perhaps he would be happy enough with tomorrow.

But he pulled the shining pelt out from beneath the bed and walked slowly to the kitchen.

The smile on Cloud’s face when he entered would live within him forever, Sephiroth thought. The way he brightened up. He smiled at Sephiroth the way he’d smiled at the waves that first night. The way he’d smiled when he first learned to dance. The way he’d smiled after their first kiss.

The smile melted away when he saw the pelt in Sephiroth’s arms.

“Oh.” Cloud whispered, staring at the soft fur.

The bacon would burn, Sephiroth thought, but he did not speak. He only draped the pelt over both his hands and held it out to Cloud without a word.

“My Sephiroth.” Cloud said, salt stinging his eyes red as tears filled them. “What have you done?”

“Something cruel.” Sephiroth said. “Something unforgivable. I have held hostage one I love. I would free him now.”

“I have to go.” Cloud whispered, his tears falling down his cheeks. “Even if I could forgive you, I will have to go now. I will have to swim so far, so fast, so--”

“Your friends are in the waves,” Sephiroth said softly. “They are waiting for you. I would have had to kill them to hold you longer. I have done you a great evil. I will do no more than that.”

“I trusted you.” Cloud whispered. “I loved you.”

“I know.” Sephiroth said softly. “I love you always, Cloud.”

He wanted to close his hands over the sealskin when Cloud reached for it. Wanted to draw it away from him. To keep it. To keep him.

He could have _made_ him stay.

He could have burned the pelt.

_I should burn you in the town square, his father said. Not drunk. Not drunk. Only considering it._

He forced himself to let go. Cloud pulled the skin from his fingers. And then he was running.

Sephiroth followed. Followed desperately, like a man possessed. Watched the seals gathered on the rocky beach call out as Cloud ran towards them. Watched him shedding his shirt and shoes. Watched him kick away his pants. Watched him cling the pelt to his chest like it was all that kept him breathing.

He saw his true form only for a moment. The bright golden-brown seal, freckled like his shoulders, sleek and sweet and free.

Sephiroth watched him vanish in the waves between one moment and the next.

He could not help but follow. Could not stop himself from walking, lost, down to the beach. The other seals withdrew from him, angry and afraid, diving after Cloud.

Sephiroth walked into the ocean. Walked until he reached the drop off, the water lapping at his waist, the precipice of the open sea under the ball of his foot.

He did not see so much as a glimpse of a seal.

* * *

No one knew what happened to their changeling’s sunny companion. One day he was there, sweet and smiling at the stall, selling fish that he made sound so delicious it was tempting to eat them raw. The next day there was no fisherman at all.

His boat still drifted in the dock, but his house stayed dark. They drew lots after three days to go and see if there were corpses inside.

They found their changeling hollow-eyed, staring out at the sea. They did not know what to do with him.

They drew him from his seclusion, stiff from immobility, starved and thirsting. They took him to the tavern. Sat him down like any man who’d lost a lover. Brought him food and drink, which he accepted only some of. They suspected it was out of politeness more than desire.

When he finally spoke, he asked only ‘Do any of you know what really happened to my mother?’

* * *

Sephiroth wandered farther in his dream-state at night. He left his body behind carelessly, like a seal skin on the rocks. He searched the beaches and the town, but nothing. So he searched the forest. He found a fairy circle at last, as if it had grown tired of watching him struggle and sprouted up to save him. When he stood inside it, there was a woman watching him.

“Mother.” Sephiroth guessed, and the woman did not speak, but she tilted her head. Fey and strange. Truthful but deceptive. Self-serving but fair. Her manner was not human, but it was not unreasonable. Sephiroth saw so much of himself in her eyes it winded him.

“My too-human son.” She said softly. “My mistake, my pride, my price. What would you ask of your mother?”

“Repayment,” Sephiroth said. “For a life that was never my own.”

* * *

The fisherman died, they thought. He must have. Somewhere out on the ocean or in the woods he’d become obsessed with. Of a broken heart, or a lost soul, or simply of an illness like his father before him. They mourned their changeling for a day, but no more than that. For as the sun was setting after that day, a whole group of them saw it. Out in the waves, moving like lightning.

They watched the silver seal disappear into the ocean. It swam like a bullet, so far and so fast, until it was well out of sight.

None of them knew for sure what the changeling had left them to find, though there were many guesses. Most to do with a golden-haired man who had never been quite right himself. The whole tavern poured a tithe from their glasses that night and wished him luck in whatever he was hunting.

Eventually that luck was his. But by then the changeling fisherman and his sad-eyed smiling lover were only stories told late at night over drinks, or whispered to lovers in the night with a mixture of reverence and fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Demon AU


	27. Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth never died. No matter how many times Cloud cut him down, he persisted. He would never be a memory. But the longer he exists between life and death, the more it changes him. Horns grow, claws lengthen, his teeth sharpen, and he draws what power he needs from humans foolish enough to summon him. 
> 
> Before he knows it, thousands of years have passed. And he finds himself summoned by an achingly, furiously familiar blond man, who simply _refuses_ to be afraid of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just popping in here to say thank you all so much for your reviews and support. It never fails to delight me seeing which chapters illicit strong reactions! I hope that you all enjoy the final few fics <3

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Sephiroth was a meticulous creature. He always had been. Detail oriented to the point of being obsessive.

But even he stopped counting the years eventually. The last number he was certain of was 1,262 years since Cloud Strife struck him down in the crater.

Over a thousand years since his first existence had ended and his second had begun. The minutes, the days, the hours since he died blurred together in a sickening diseased mass of time.

As far as he was concerned, he had handled death with grace. Or, to be more exact, he had _refused_ it with grace. Seen the oblivion and oneness that death offered and turned it down to watch the world turn. To watch it crumble. To wait for chances to step his feet back on that cursed ground. To exact some little revenge against the world that had thwarted him.

It was never easy. Just like when he’d returned to life with his clones, it took a focus for him to manifest. His little splintered remnant and Jenova’s cells had done well enough the first time, but it was hardly easy to replicate. Thanks to a certain spirit who seemed intent on spoiling his fun and had gleefully wiped out most of Sephiroth’s sleeper clones in a single rain-shower.

 _Most_ was the important word. There were still a few who’d been inside during her waterworks. A few he could worm his way into. Through whose eyes he could read, research, learn, and eventually write. It was slow work. He had to be careful. They were fragile and impermanent.

He learned to take a little at a time. Just enough.

They taught the world learned to worship him. The spirit of terrible knowledge that ruined their bodies slowly. And when the last of them was gone, there were still people in the world who would open themselves to him. Grant him their eyes and arms.

He found that however much he learned, it was them who changed him. Those breakable humans. Over decades they began to call him demon, and master. Began to assign rules to him. Deals to be made. Bargains to be had. He agreed by playing along. Let them call him with the right circles. With the right words. Let them eat themselves away with his presence.

And slowly, through them, he built himself a lasting legacy.

The first human to summon him, to put together the symbols and words and rules that Sephiroth could use as a focus. Sephiroth had tried to leave then. To go to Cloud, still living somewhere on the earth. To find those who had torn him down and lay waste to them. But he could not leave the circle. Faded if he strayed too far.

His frustration doubled when he found the insolent human speaking to him. Demanding a deal. A bargain. A request in exchange for his soul.

“I have no need of a soul,” Sephiroth said. “But I will take your strength in exchange.”

And the man had agreed. He had asked Sephiroth to kill, and Sephiroth had found himself freed to do it. He slaughtered the man he’d been sent after, and laughed to do it.

When he returned, the man who had summoned him fell dead as well as Sephiroth absorbed his strength.

He disappeared again at the lack of focus and attention. But he was satisfied. He had learned a great deal.

The stolen strength crystallized within him, his own internal well. Green and bright as the man’s lifeforce would have been in the lifestream. Sephiroth was not physical, but he felt it join with him. Become part of him. Felt it fuel him.

He was able to watch better after then. He saw the newspapers covering the man’s death. The mysterious scrawlings on his floor. The body without a mark, with a healthy heart, with a dazed smile.

The papers told of the death that had occurred the same night. The man wanted for the murder of his wife. Sephiroth learned who he had been summoned to kill and turned it over in his head. Did it count as a good thing, he wondered. It didn’t matter, he decided. Making the deal had given him power. Given him some license. Left him stronger.

And he couldn’t have asked for better publicity than his summoner’s death, and the detailed photographs of the strange scene he’d left.

The summons became more frequent. The tug of someone calling, the pull of someone who had willingly put together a focus for him with no meddling on Sephiroth’s part whatsoever. One by one Sephiroth answered them.

They changed him. The perceptions of the ones calling him. Their thoughts. Their beliefs, their latent power, their connection to him, to the planet.

Their summons twisted his body, and he let them. Let their minds supply him with fangs and claws. Let his reputation grow horns through his silver hair. His wing he kept, displaying it, a marker that he had never been a human. Never been one of theirs.

He didn’t like the chains the manifested on his wrists as much. The shackles symbolizing how tied to their deals he had become. How bound to humanity he had become with his new existence.

It wouldn’t be forever, he thought each time he manifested, the green lifeforce of his captured strength burning within him so brightly that he was alight from within.

When he absorbed his summoner’s strength now, it shone out from the center of him. Green backlighting his ribs. His lungs. His dead heart.

They didn’t always die. His deal was simple. His summoner had one request to make a day. It could be as large or as small as they wanted, but he would take payment when it was done.

Wise masters could keep him for weeks. Months. Asking only enough that they could survive. But eventually he outlasted them all, for the second stipulation was what bound them.

They could never go a whole day without making a request of him. If they did, their contact ended, and they could never have him again.

He worked for men and women greedier than any Shinra. He carelessly wrecked their havoc. Carelessly did their bidding. The world was his by rights, he thought, so all he did was what was owed him.

He stole money, he killed, he threatened, he burned homes and tore down infrustructures. He worked for those who called themselves righteous and those who revelled in their cruelty. He did not care enough about their comings and goings to discern who was who, what would be considered right. He only did his task, and took his pay. Just as he had always done.

The day Cloud died, he felt it distantly. A mourning that shuddered through the planet. A long-lost failed clone of his fading and winking out, decades after its time.

He should not have cared.

Sephiroth missed three summons in his anger, tearing at himself and the pieces of the planet he could reach in frustration.

He spent much of his hoarded energy. When he began again, it was from a smaller start. He dedicated himself to it. To his slow, creeping revenge. The one he wanted was gone. But the planet still lived on.

He set himself to the task before him as the years rolled by. As humanity faded and resurged. As the world crumbled and regrew. As the stars flickered out in the sky, one every few hundred years. And Sephiroth found there was nothing he could do as the memory of him faded with them, another star dwindling. His earned strength filled him, but it wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t enough. Not for his revenge. Not for his ascension.

But Sephiroth was nothing if not meticulous. Nothing if not patient. He was not given to flying off the handle and wasting effort. So he stayed inside the nowhere place, not alive, not dead. Only waiting.

* * *

The call was the first in decades. The first in so long even Sephiroth had nearly lost count of the time between his summons. It was not a strong call, but he could not ignore it. If there was any being who still remembered him, he had to spread the word. He hoped for another like his first summoner. Someone flashy. Someone to remind the world of his power.

He answered the call. It pulled him upwards, out of whatever and wherever he was. Let the will of his summoner constrict him into a body, as familiar as it was foreign after so many years. His wing stretched and fanned. The bright hole in his reality opened above him, glowing from within like he did. Pure power.

Sephiroth had not breached into the living world in decades. He did it with a great gasp of air, his head thrown back as his hands pushed through reality. Slammed down on either side of the summoning circle to drag him through.

He fixed his eyes on the man outside the circle, and froze, feeling his triumphant grin morph into open-mouthed surprise.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A look of awe and excitement and fear, mingled together into an expression that was as unfamiliar as the face was hauntingly fixed in his memory.

Cloud Strife, no more than twenty two, dressed in a t-shirt and sweating in effort and anxiety, stared up at Sephiroth with that traumatized delight. And Sephiroth…

Sephiroth only gaped, eyes wide and glowing, his open mouth lighting Cloud with green from the light burning within himself.

“Oh, fuck, right!” Cloud said, jerking back, lifting his hands and slamming them together. “Demon, I call upon you to make a pact with me, and do no harm till its fulfillment!”

“Demon?” Sephiroth asked, dumbly, still only halfway through the portal.

“Sephiroth,” Cloud corrected, no familiarity in the name. Not the tone of one who had heard it spoken before. Who had screamed it in fury and agony. Who had first praised and then cursed him in turn till he was breathless for it. “Sorry. This is my first summoning. Is that obvious? Will you make a pact with me?”

No, Sephiroth thought. No, no no, too dangerous after all our work, say no.

But the chains on his wrists were heavy. And what was more, Cloud’s face…

It was the first familiar face he’d seen in…

“The pact is made.” Sephiroth said, running his tongue over his teeth, slowly forcing himself to lift slowly out of the summoning portal. It closed behind him. Faded and cracked, only a damaged floor.

“Oh man, that’s going to be hard to explain when it comes time to get my security deposit back.” Cloud said, staring down at the cracked hardwood.

“What would you have of me?” Sephiroth asked, spreading his hands, flaring his wing. Maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but he wanted to see it. He wanted to see fear and awe in Cloud’s eyes.

Instead the young man tilted his head, looking down at the wood scared by the reality shift.

“Could you fix the floor?” He asked.

“I—”

“Wait, okay, wait, let’s go through the terms first! Oh man, I can’t believe this worked… Can I write about you in my thesis? No, probably not, the texts say no one else can see you, okay, um… Rules are I ask for things, you take some strength for doing them, I get one a day and I have to use it or you leave, right?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth said slowly. “How did you—”

“I’m studying anthropology,” Cloud said, gesturing to a stack of old books. One was opened to a page of a demon with horns and a wing. Sephiroth’s name was written in the script of the old world within it. He remembered the man he had commanded write it. So many hundreds of years ago now. “So, you know, thought I’d get some hands on-experience. But wow. Wow you’re actually real!”

“If you summoned me only for idle curiosity—”

“No no! I have tasks and stuff. But today’s… For today just fix the floor, okay? I won’t get my rental’s security deposit money back if it’s got black magic cracks through it or whatever, I think.”

Sephiroth stared at him. This stupid young thing, all blond fluff and blue eyes. The reincarnation of his killer. Of the greatest soldier the world had ever known. He stared him dead in the eyes as he waved a hand and healed the floor, a series of sharp pops escaping the wood as it reformed.

Cloud’s answering smile was brilliant and delighted. A little wild. Perhaps not incorruptible, Sephiroth thought, seeing the desire for his power. Seeing his unbridled interest. Perhaps he could get his revenge even shackled as he was to this reincarnation's will.

“The payment.” Sephiroth said, extending his hand.

“The book didn’t say how–Hngh!” He cut off with a choking sound, hunching in on himself as Sephiroth’s magic coiled through him and drew just a little strength free. A fair exchange. He could take no more than that. But he knew it hurt. Perhaps that would be enough to dissuade further frivolities.

The green sparks of strength floated out of his stomach from beneath his clenching hands, and Sephiroth opened his mouth, consuming them in a single swallow.

“Perhaps now,” He said, low and dark. “You will reconsider using my power for trivialities.”

Cloud was gasping for breath, trying to steady himself. Sephiroth revelled in it. Seeing him off balance. Seeing him hunched and defensive.

Then his reincarnated nemesis straightened. Rolled his shoulders back. Sucked in a deep breath.

‘It was fair.” he said, his voice firm and unwavering.

‘Stay in my memory.’ a voice long past ordered.

“I’d probably have hurt myself at least that much trying to fix it.” Cloud was saying, his expression carefully blank. “So I’d say it was a good deal.”

Still himself, Sephiroth thought, tilting his head as he watched the young man. Stubborn in all the most foolish ways.

“So I asked the request for today,” Cloud said. “Do you stay until it’s time for the next?”

“Yes.” Sephiroth said, watching him suspiciously.

“Cool,” Cloud said, grinning in a way that almost hid how he was shaking. “Do you like video games?”

* * *

Sephiroth silently counted the minutes. The new Cloud did not have to. He set an alarm on his phone. The world had changed while Sephiroth was trapped away from it.

“There,” Cloud had said, grinning and showing Sephiroth his digital calendar. “Now I won’t forget to boss you around tomorrow.”

“You do not 'boss' me.” Sephiroth said coldly. “You request.”

“And you do it, so… Seems kind of like an order.”

Sephiroth glowered at him from the corner while Cloud went on playing his video game as if a demon wasn’t giving him a death glare.

“Alright,” Cloud said. “I have my request for today.”

“Good.” Sephiroth said, arms at his side, waiting. His wing unfurled. He tilted his head down, letting his horns catch the light. Make it big, he ordered silently. Make it final. Let me devour you whole.

“Can you clean the tops of the fan blades?”

“What?” Sephiroth growled, showing a hint of fang. He felt the coiling energy inside him flare bright, setting his insides alight.

“You can fly, right?” Cloud asked. “It shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“You summoned me. A demon. To dust your fans.”

“No, I summoned you for something else. But that’s what I want today. Are you going to break your deal?”

Sephiroth growled. Throaty and animal. But he hovered off the ground slowly, holding eye contact with Cloud as he wiped his hand over the fan blades. The dust vanished without a trace under his palm.

“Awesome.” Cloud said, grinning. “I bet my asthma will be a lot better now.”

Sephiroth glared at him, eyes narrowed, and reveled just a little in the sound Cloud made when he dragged the price from him. A faint sliver of energy, but something. Something.

The next day, Cloud’s alarm went off and Cloud had Sephiroth retrieve a mug from the top shelf for him. The day after, the alarm went off and Cloud told Sephiroth to pick up a ‘controller’ and play a round of MoogleGo-Kart against him.

Cloud won. Sephiroth siphoned his energy from him and demanded a rematch. Cloud was still catching his breath, so Sephiroth was able to beat him the second time.

But he didn’t tell Cloud he already had his favor for the day when Cloud suggested round three. It was as close as he could get to glorious battle with this soft human version of his nemesis.

The day after that, Cloud went to school.

“Today’s request,” Cloud said, lifting a hand. “Is for you to come with me.”

Sephiroth did. He followed along silently. Watched Cloud move through his day. Most at home around old books and buried in research. Stuttering in conversations and doing a decent but inelegant job of pretending Sephiroth wasn’t there, hovering over his shoulder, inspecting his frothy coffee-based drink.

Cloud slid it surreptitiously to his side, where Sephrioth was hovering, and glanced over at him with an encouraging nod.

Absolutely not, Sephiroth thought. But it smelled so…

He leaned in and stole the smallest of tastes. He watched the small, satisfied smile brighten Cloud’s face and hated himself a little for falling for it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

“It’s good, right?” Cloud whispered, but said no more after that, writing feverishly with one hand and sipping the admittedly delicious beverage.

When they returned to the apartment, Sephiroth took his price. He did not understand why it didn’t make him happy to hear Cloud’s grunt of pain or watch him lean against the wall.

* * *

“Do you want to join me for dinner tonight?” Cloud offered three days later. “You tried my drink the other day, so you must be able to, like, taste things. I should have offered sooner.”

“I have no need,” Sephiroth said suspiciously. “You cannot buy extra favors.”

“I’m not trying to buy anything.” Cloud sighed. “You are _so_ suspicious of me. Haven’t I always been clear when I’m asking for something?”

“Crystal.” Sephiroth said flatly. “But yesterday you had me clean out the gutters of an old woman’s house. You didn’t even know her.”

“Her gutters needed cleaning.”

“It was a bigger task than anything you’ve asked of me yet, and you paid for it. Your well of strength is not endless. You will ask me for something that destroys you one day.”

“That’s for me to worry about.” Cloud said firmly. “I asked if you wanted to join me for dinner. You can just say ‘no’ if you don't want to.”

“No.” Said Sephiroth, just to be contrary, then frowned at himself, crossing his arms.

Cloud laughed at him, but it didn’t make him feel angry like it should have. He just felt…

“What are you making?” He muttered.

“Just some stroganoff and salad.”

“I will chop for you.” Sephiroth said flatly. “I am good with blades.”

“You’ve already done me my favor today,” Cloud reminded.

“Fair’s fair.” Sephiroth said. “If I am going to eat your food, I must contribute to the meal.”

That wasn’t how it worked. Not really. In all his years he had NEVER sat down to a meal with a human who summoned him. But Sephiroth was interested, despite himself. Besides, hadn’t he made all the rules up for himself as he went? It wasn’t as if eating stroganoff would destroy any of his plans or goals.

He blinked, even as Cloud passed him a knife with a smile. He felt the urge to plunge it into Cloud's sternum, for old time’s sake, but he restrained himself. His goals, he thought as he turned to the washed vegetables before him. What were they again? World domination maybe? Something like that. Revenge certainly. The slow death of Cloud Strife, already in progress, the slow death of the planet still to come.

It was so long ago he’d set his mind. His course. His determination in recent decades had bent towards keeping himself together rather than his actual desires. Now he found himself trying to recall what he had felt so strongly about, and only finding shadows of old emotions. It was terrifying. He felt the pool of strength within him tremble at it, flickering bright.

Cooking was something he had been good at once. He felt he needed something grounding. So he settled in, putting Cloud’s salad together and ending up taking the mushrooms from him to chop them as well. More out of impatience than generosity.

Then he washed the knife, because he could see that Cloud intended to leave it in the sink, and it was rude to the blade. He tried not to look at the blond while he worked. He had never been helpful without price before.

He watched the young man cook after that. Watched him pull on his thick-rimmed glasses to peer at the recipe. Watched his motions--not hesitant, but not warrior-smooth.

He wondered how much of Cloud Strife was in this boy, when he had never been touched by his power. Never been put through the death and destruction and agony that had made the hero of the planet.

It was exceedingly awkward to sit down at the table with him. His wing brushed the floor when he folded it at his back, and he hit the hanging light fixture with his horns. Cloud didn’t seem to mind. He only grinned, like he was delighted to eat a meal together.

It was good. Sephiroth hadn’t realized that he had missed flavor. That the taste of acid on his tongue had grown stale.

He had no need of food, but he ate what Cloud had served him, and savored it quietly till the bitter taste of the green light within him overwhelmed it once more.

“That was fun.” Cloud commented, smiling warmly at Sephiroth. “Thank you.”

Sephiroth did not say anything, but he quietly hoped that maybe they would repeat the experience in the future.

They did.

* * *

Cloud asked him for meaningless things. Small favors. Sephiroth did them, and took his payment. He could not take more or less than the task cost. He had locked the prices in long ago. They were as much part of him as the horns were.

Cloud was cautious. He gave up his strength in minuscule amounts. It would take years for Sephiroth to destroy him at this rate. Years of meaningless tasks, and video games, and home-cooked meals that Sephiroth helped make now as if it had been part of the deal all along.

Cloud figured out that Sephiroth didn’t like the taste of his glowing mouth, and brought home hard candies for him to suck on.

One night, Cloud’s alarm went off halfway through a Mooglego-Kart run, and he’d ordered Sephiroth to lose with a laugh. Like it was a game.

Sephiroth put down his controller and watched his seven-game win-streak end. Then he took the droplets of Cloud’s strength and watched him twitch and shudder on the couch.

He didn’t make a sound when Sephrioth pulled strength from him anymore. He’d gotten used to it.

“Cloud,” said Sephiroth as he watched him put himself together again. “Why did you summon me?”

“Ah,” Cloud breathed, stretching. “You know. I have my reasons.”

“A thousand years I have circled this planet, and you are the first fool to do this. To call me and do _nothing_ with me. To sell yourself in droplets. Is this a game? Do you enjoy wasting my skill? I could give you anything, Cloud Strife. Anything for a price.”

“You know my name isn’t Cloud, right?” Cloud said, smiling at him fondly.

Sephiroth froze. Stared at this human, watching him from the sofa like he might start laughing at him.

“Come on, Sephiroth.” He said after a moment of silence. “Let’s go another round and then have dinner. Maybe I’ll even let you win.”

“You are a fool.” Sephiroth said, darkly. “You play with forces you do not understand.”

“Or maybe you’re the fool,” said Cloud-but-not-Cloud, looking over at him through intense eyes. “To assume that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Sephiroth did not ask what his name was in this life. He didn't want to think about it.

* * *

The next day found Cloud pouring over his homework. Ancient books that had been new when Sephiroth was alive. Now near-indecipherable to the new human race, after the almost-extinction five hundred years ago. Cloud's phone alarm went off on the table, and he reached over to silence it thoughtlessly. Sephiroth watched his motions, holding his breath. Would it be the day he slipped? Would he be free?

Did he want to be?

“I’d like information today,” Cloud said, removing the need for Sephiroth to consider that question. “Does that count in the deal, or is it just physical acts?”

“Information will do.” Sephiroth said. “The quality and number of questions you ask determines your price.”

“Hm,” Said Cloud. “I’ll take three questions then, please. That sounds like a traditional number, right?”

“It is standard.” Sephiroth replied, tilting his head, watching Cloud work on letters that were still familiar to him, though Cloud was agonizing over them. “Do you plan to use me to finish your homework?”

“Oh, that’d be smart.” Cloud said, tapping his chin. “But I kind of already picked them out, I think. Next time.”

“Ask then.” Sephiroth said. “The clock doesn’t stop until I take payment.”

“Were you human before you were a demon?” Cloud asked, making another note, eyes still on his paperwork. “Some of the writings about you say yes, but others say you’re a fallen god.”

“Both are correct.” Sephiroth said flatly. “I was the child of a god and a man.”

“Did you try to destroy the world?” Cloud asked next, still looking at his work. He wasn’t making a note of what Sephiroth said. He was translating what looked like a technical manual for a PHS.

“I tried to claim it.” Sephiroth said, tilting his head, looking down his nose at Cloud. “This planet is my birthright. I shall sail the cosmos on its shell.”

“Hm,” Said Cloud. “Using future tense. How threatening of you.”

Sephiroth only stared at him, waiting for the third question. Perhaps something metaphysical. If it was a 'why,' he would be able to twist it either way. He could answer honestly with almost nothing given, almost nothing taken. Or he could answer thoroughly and drain Cloud dry before he was even aware of the danger. He didn’t know which he would choose.

He licked his teeth, considering, as Cloud took breath to ask his final question.

“Are you happy?” Cloud asked, lifting his face from his work at last to look at Sephiroth.

Sephiroth felt his stolen strength flicker green, so brightly it lit Cloud’s face through his skin and bones. Felt his mouth go dry under the acid taste. His wing shifted, stretched, flared till it knicked the ceiling’s cheap popcorn finish.

He swallowed. Took a breath. Tried to answer no. Tried to be angry. Tried to understand what was happening to him.

“It’s okay if you don’t know.” Cloud said, turning back to his work after a moment. “It’s a hard question.”

“I’m not satisfied.” Sephiroth said at last. “I will never be satisfied until I have claimed what is mine.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Cloud laughed softly. “No one’s ever satisfied.”

“Is this a game to you?”

“You ask that once every few days.” Cloud commented, making a note of it in his phone’s calendar. “No, Sephiroth, I still know what I’m doing.”

“You should fear me.” Sephiroth hissed. “I have every reason to hate you. You are the reborn form of the man who stole my destiny. Stole what I had earned.”

“That’s not at all what the books say.” Cloud said mildly. “They say you’re a nightmare, and a calamity. They say you tried to burn the planet alive, and heroes rose to stop you. They also say that the planet’s champion was a young woman who you murdered a second too late to keep her from stopping you. Not some blond kid.”

Sephiroth glared down at him, his eyes flaring, his body burning with unstoppable, unknowable emotion.

“All histories,” he said, venom dripping from his words, literally. He could feel the cold green acid within him on his tongue, on his teeth, sliding from the corner of his lips. “Are written by the survivors.”

He remembered the stories after Wutai. The romantic novels. The praise-riddled articles. Remembered being painted as a hero. He didn’t care what the books said in the slightest.

Cloud laughed at him, soft and slow, shaking his head with the motion.

“And what would the survivors say if the enemy really was a nightmare?” He asked.

“Is that another question?” Sephiroth asked, snarling around the acid.

“No.” Cloud said. “Though you never answered my third.”

“I have never been happy.” Sephiroth hissed, and felt something tighten and coil within him like a string. The feeling of a failure to complete a task. He had only felt it twice before.

He had not told the truth.

“Alright.” Cloud said with a shrug.

Sephiroth took his payment. For two questions and no more.

* * *

He expected more questions to follow in the days after. Expected that this Not-Cloud had found what he wanted and would take it greedily now.

But the next day he was tasked with replacing all the light bulbs in the apartment with the new ‘eco-friendly’ bulbs Cloud had bought while out and about. He glowered while he did it. Cloud watched, smirking with his arms crossed, as Sephiroth helped save the world in a truly depressingly mundane way.

He braced for questions the next day, hovering disconsolate like he had when he first arrived. Cloud only asked him to make tea while he studied, and didn’t even flinch when Sephiroth took his payment.

And before Sephiroth was aware of it they were back to that easy existence. A small request every day after the alarm went off. Video games between homework. Quiet days out and about, not able to speak for fear of making Cloud look like a madman, though Sephiroth often took the opportunity to tease him quietly, whispering in Cloud’s ear about whose eyes he had caught, about who was doing better on his tests than him, about exactly what websites were open on his instructor’s computer.

At night, Cloud would complain about it and flick scraps of onion or spice at him while they made dinner together.

“Out, accursed demon. Stop telling me who’s got crushes.” He would mutter, sprinkling salt on Sephiroth while the demon snickered despite himself.

Sephiroth would suck on hard candy to settle the taste of his acidic insides, and try to pretend this was all how it was meant to be.

It was an easy peace, and easily broken. The day Cloud got mugged, Sephiroth knew he couldn’t pretend as easily anymore.

“You shouldn’t have asked me to cook breakfast.” Sephiroth hissed in Cloud’s ear as the man trained a gun on him. “I could stop them in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t have much.” Cloud warned the mugger, his voice shaking, his hands up. “But you can have my wallet. Can I reach for it?”

“I can take it just as easily with you dead.” The man said coldly, and took aim.

Sephiroth would try to justify it to himself later. That his contract wasn’t up, or that Cloud was a good source of strength even if it was only a little at a time, or that he wanted to be the one to kill Cloud, or that he just didn’t like bullets.

The reality of it was that he stepped in front of Cloud and took the shot because he didn’t want Cloud to die there.

Cloud flinched, hands lifted in front of his face, touching Sephiroth’s back as his body absorbed the hit. The bullet was back-lit by his acid blood, suspended before his unbeating heart.

“What the fuck?” The mugger hissed.

Sephiroth moved forward slowly. Smoothly. Like a river flooding. Like a wave about to crash. As steady as it was unstoppable.

“Sephiroth, don’t.” Cloud gasped, breathless behind him.

“Sorry, Cloud.” Sephiroth growled, acid pooling in his mouth, dripping off his teeth. "You already asked for your favor today."

The mugger died in the street that day. And when Sephiroth turned around, he found Cloud trembling, his hand clamped over his mouth, staring down at the body.

“Do you fear me yet?” Sephiroth asked, still dripping blood and acid.

“Are you hurt?” Cloud choked instead. “The bullet—”

Sephiroth waved a hand at his chest. Drew the lead out of himself, leaking only a small bit of his stolen strength down his chest. A waste, but not the worst waste he’d ever had.

“Why did you do that?” Cloud gasped, tears in his eyes. “Sephiroth, why—”

“I don’t have to answer your questions. You can ask tomorrow if you need my answers so badly.” Sephiroth put a hand on Cloud’s shoulder, turning him away from the grisly scene and walking him home.

Cloud didn’t sleep that night. He sat on the sofa, processing what had happened. What he had seen.

“We should call someone.” He’d stuttered at first. “When they find him—”

“They’ll say he met with some rabid animal,” Sephiroth said with a shrug. “That is what they always say.”

“But Sephiroth, someone’s going to find that body! They’re going to have to live with that.”

“You are a strange man.” Sephiroth told him softly. “Sit down. Breathe.”

He went to fetch Cloud tea. Cleaned the blood from himself with a motion while he could focus on it. Looked down at the chains on his wrists. Turned his hands back and forth, wondering.

He crouched on the floor before Cloud when he returned. Gave him his tea and lay a hand on his knee, watching him as Cloud shivered and drank slowly, his eyes glassy and his focus wandering.

“You saved my life.” Cloud whispered, hours later.

“Yes.” Sephiroth said blandly. “I suppose I did.”

“The books don’t say anything about that. You like your summoners to die, they say. You’ll try to kill them.”

Sephiroth shrugged. He didn’t want to answer aloud that Cloud wasn’t like the other ones had been.

“I already asked you today’s favor, right?” Cloud said.

“Yes.” Sephiroth said. “But we can do tomorrow’s early if you want it so badly.”

“No, that’s kind of the opposite of what I...” Cloud whispered, his eyes closing in exhaustion as he trailed off. “I was going to say, I’d like to kiss you, but I don’t want it to be a favor.”

Sephiroth moved forward slowly. He was careful. His teeth were sharp, and acid filled him. But he could press his lips to Cloud’s softly.

* * *

“You never told me why you summoned me,” Sephiroth commented, weeks later, peeling an apple for Cloud’s pie.

“I was lonely,” Cloud said softly. “And I knew your name, when I saw it. I might have gotten a little obsessive about it.”

“How much do you remember?” Sephiroth asked.

“Not much.” Cloud said, smiling at Sephiroth’s hands as he worked, elegant and easy. “I think that’s just as well.”

“Yes,” Sephiroth agreed softly, setting down the apple. “I think so.”

“What should I ask you for today?” Cloud asked.

“Something inconsequential, I’m sure.” Sephiroth scoffed. “You recover your strength faster than I take it.”

“Yeah,” Cloud laughed. “That’s the plan. How about vacuuming?”

“I hate vacuuming. I’d charge you double.”

“Alright. I’ll vacuum. How do you feel about dishes?”

Sephiroth nodded.

“Demon, I bid thee do my dishes.”

“I love it when you call me Demon.” Sephiroth snickered.

“Good,” laughed Cloud, “I love it when you call me Cloud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Dog Walking AU


	28. Dog Walking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's still a little lost about how to help his puppy Zack be a good canine citizen, but he really thinks the beautiful stranger's dogs are overreacting. Sephiroth just wants to feel safe, but somehow he knows he's letting his guard dogs down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry for the delay! As you may have guessed, working during a pandemic is extremely stressful! I hope all of you are keeping safe, and that this dog walking AU brings you some joy <3)

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Ostensibly, Cloud was going for a run. It was harder to do when his running buddy wanted to meet everyone he saw on the street. Harder still when said running buddy was so sweet and happy that everyone wanted to meet him too.

Even harder when Cloud had a soft-spot a mile wide for him and couldn’t have pulled him away from saying hello to _yet another_ stranger even if he’d actually been running to something important.

So Cloud stopped yet again when Zack whined under his breath, watching as a little girl pulled excitedly on her mother’s shirt, pointing at him.

“It’s okay,” said Cloud before the mother could apologize. “You can say hello, but tell him to sit first, okay?”

“Sit, puppy!” The girl cried gleefully, and all but exploded when the shaggy black dog dropped to sit at her command, his tongue lolling pleasantly and his tail wagging a mile a minute.

“What a good dog.” The mother praised, even as the little girl started petting his cheeks and fuzzy chest.

“Doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” Cloud said with a smile.

“What breed is he?”

“I have no idea,” Cloud laughed, reaching down to ruffle Zack’s ears fondly himself. “Some sort of mutt. He’s a rescue. From how he jumps for Frisbees I think there must be some kangaroo in there somewhere.”

“Aren’t you proud of yourself,” Cloud muttered down to his beaming dog as they walked away from the happy little girl and her mother. “You know I got you to go on runs with me, not to force me into a bunch of more social interactions.”

Zack only looked up at him adoringly, eyes bright and one ear flopped backwards.

Cloud fixed it for him and patted his side.

“Come on,” He laughed. “Let’s get a few blocks running in before you spot a new friend.”

They made it almost a block and a half.

It took twenty minutes longer than it should have for them to make it to the park. Cloud switched Zack’s short leash to his long flexi lead so he could explore a little more in the more open areas. Zack was a good dog, and didn’t usually pull-- only ever exploring as far as the leash let him. So Cloud had invested in good long ones so Zack could feel comfortable wandering a little.

“Now can we run?” Cloud asked Zack.

As if in answer Zack trotted over to a small group of tulips in the landscaping and started sniffing the flowers.

“Of course,” Cloud sighed, but smiled and let Zack have his exploration time for a little while. When he whistled, Zack came jogging back to him, ears perked and tail high. Cloud started jogging before Zack caught all the way up, and the two of them fell in side by side easily.

Cloud had been nervous at first. Zack was his first dog, and he hadn’t known if it’d work out between them. But from the moment he saw him at the shelter, still awkwardly shaved in places where they’d pulled buckshot from under his skin after his previous owners tried to kill him…

Well, he’d known it didn’t matter if he wasn’t the perfect running buddy. Zack had become Cloud’s dog the moment they saw each other.

Now he was all furred out, and even Cloud couldn’t find the scars from his surgery. Cloud made sure to send the folks at the shelter monthly pictures of his happy pup so they could see how well he'd recovered. And how happy he was now. There had been some adjustment for the both of them, of course. Zack was nervous at first-- sweet but flighty. Quick to bare his teeth if he felt cornered.

Cloud had been anxious and uninformed. Had researched every sound. Had signed them up for classes together to learn more.

By the third training session they were best friends. Zack was brilliant and eager to please, his natural enthusiasm bolstered by liberal use of snacks and praise.

He wasn’t the perfect running partner, like some of the people he saw with their dogs faithfully to heel, ignoring the rest of the world. Cloud probably could have gotten Zack to do that, could have taught him that while they were running he needed to focus. But it had only crossed his mind once, early on. He’d surrendered the idea quickly. He’d much rather stop his run twenty times so that Zack could have fun too.

They’d made the acquaintance of a couple other runners over the month they’d been using their current route. There was a small subset of people in Midgar who liked to spend their weekday mornings jogging through public parks before work instead of recovering from hangovers. Most of them were greeted only with a wave. One runner took the same route as Cloud did, and would only call out ‘Bye!’ every day as he inevitably passed Cloud at one of Zack’s frequent friend-making stops. It was one of Cloud’s favorite morning routines.

The beautiful man with two dangerous-looking, serious dogs at his side was not one of the normal passers by.

The dogs walked on short leads that were slack and held easily in the man’s hand. He wasn’t worried about them running. And clearly for good reason. They had their shoulders pressed to his knees as he walked, alert and on guard. Their eyes were fixed on every person who came even remotely close. It meant the man was given a wide berth by everyone else in the park.

Cloud would have happily been one of those people, but Zack saw a potential friend and jogged forward.

Cloud lunged after him, clamping down on the leash and dragging Zack back just as the reddish german shepherd at the handsome stranger’s side whipped his head towards them, staring intently, ears pointing straight in the air and hackles bristling. He gave a warning snarl. His teeth were shining and curved, glinting in the light.

“Genesis.” The stranger said, his voice low in reprimand. He glanced up to Cloud as his dog settled, pressing against his leg protectively.

“Sorry,” Cloud managed to stutter. “He thinks everyone’s a friend.”

The man stared at him a moment, then looked down to Zack, who was looking between Cloud and the handsome, dangerous dogs. Zack whined piteously, his tail drooping and his ears pressing back as he displayed his distress at being denied.

“It’s alright.” The stranger murmured, his voice soft and smooth. “Genesis is easily startled.”

He went on his way, the snarly german shepherd pressed to one side and the burly rottweiler to his other.

Zack whined once more, and Cloud watched as the rottweiler looked back at them, only for a moment. His ears perked, only briefly, and Cloud saw his docked tail give a hesitant wag before he focused back on his protection.

“Zack,” Cloud whispered, crouching down. “Buddy. You have to be more careful. No making friends with guard dogs, okay?”

He slid his hands under Zack’s collar and gave his neck a rub in apology for having yanked on him to stop him. Better than him finding a neckful of Genesis’s teeth, but not ideal.

Once Cloud stopped shaking from the adrenaline he stood up to continue their jog. Zack shook off heartily, glancing back the way his failed friends had headed before falling in at Cloud’s side to leave the spot of the near-altercation behind them.

It was a good run all in all. They paused at the end of the park as always and Cloud filled up the travel bowl he kept clipped to his belt with a midpoint drink for Zack. He checked his paws and grinned as Zack tried to turn it into a very confusing four-paw game of ‘shake.’

“You are the best.” Cloud told him, rubbing his soft ears both as Zack pressed a cold nose to his cheek before following it with a very wet lick.

“Eugh!” Cloud objected, standing up abruptly and wiping his face off with the sleeve of his jacket. But he was grinning, and Zack barked in delight at him, wagging his whole body and slamming his front paws down in a playbow.

“I take it back, you’re the worst,” Cloud teased, even as he tossed the treat he’d been carrying in his pocket to his pup. He technically hadn’t done perfectly on their walk, but he was a good boy, and deserved cookies. Even if he made Cloud worry sometimes.

Zack caught it out of the air and crunched it a few times, tail wagging as he watched Cloud expectantly. Cloud glanced around the park. Usually at this point in their runs he’d unfold the fabric Frisbee at his hip. Throw it for Zack a few times while he stretched out. The part of the park was so far from the road it was totally safe, and Zack was well behaved enough to stick close to Cloud and would even stop trotting off to say hello to a stranger if Cloud called him.

But he hadn’t had time to call him earlier, he thought, thinking of that beautiful, dangerous man and his dogs.

“Not… Today buddy.” He said softly to his dog, feeling guilty at once as he started packing up and Zack’s tail slowly drooped.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Cloud promised him. “We’ll go on one of your favorite trails this weekend, okay?”

Zack didn’t understand him, but Cloud felt a little better for making the promise.

“Come on,” He urged, his voice pitching upwards, patting his thigh. “Come on, buddy. Let’s jog home, okay? I’m sure there’ll be more people for you to charm, okay?”

There were, and it perked Zack up again in no time. His tail was high and wagging within minutes, having already charmed two ladies into breaking off their power walk to stop and say hello. Zack was on his back getting belly rubs from them in no time, his tongue lolling and his paws politely curled. Cloud had let himself relax a little, and thanked the ladies for spoiling his puppy.

“His paws are huge,” one of the women commented. “How old is he?”

“Probably not full grown,” Cloud said with an awkward laugh. “I’m lucky he’s so good.”

The interaction lifted their moods, and they jogged on happy, if sweaty in Cloud's case.

This time Cloud saw the handsome man approaching from a ways away. He was looking down, stoic and unfairly beautiful. Cloud had plenty of time to reign Zack into a heel and keep him there with gentle reminders and a cookie in his hand.

Cloud looked up, ready to offer the man a cautious smile. A silent ‘see? He can be good!’ But the man wasn’t looking. He was staring down, a tense look on his face. Cloud let his expression fall, but praised Zack again for being good as the pup whined, looking towards the other dogs.

This time, since they were passing the other way, it was the other dog at his side. The burly rottweiler. He was already perked up, looking at Zack with an expression that seemed friendly, even with his size and the broad collar that spoke of a hidden strength. Cloud saw his little nub of a tail give a hopeful wag.

Good boy, thought Cloud, relieved that the tense Genesis was on the other side this time. The bigger dog seemed to recognize that Zack and Cloud weren’t a threat.

Still, Cloud would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed that the beautiful man hadn’t noticed them this time, when Zack was being so good.

The growl caught them both off guard. Cloud jerked his hand up, tightened his hold on Zack’s leash and pulled him back, putting himself between his pup and the stranger. Cloud had just an instant to realize that the man looked just as startled as he was as Genesis jolted forward, all teeth and hackles. Cloud braced for pain, even as Zack barked in return, struggling instantly to get between Cloud and the aggressive dog.

“Genesis! To heel!”

The command carried a sharp rebuke, and the snarling and snapping was replaced at once by a combination of a whine and a growl. Cloud opened his eyes, breathing hard, as the red dog whirled, pressing against the man’s leg again, glaring daggers.

“Are you hurt?” The stranger asked, anxiety in his every line. The rottweiler was giving his companion a hard look, staring at the tense dog as if considering the evidence of his claim.

“I’m okay,” Cloud whispered, looking down at himself. Zack was pressed against him now, not a guard dog by any stretch, but straining against Cloud’s behind-the-back grip to get between him and Genesis.

“Your leg—” The man started.

Cloud looked down at the stylish rip in his jeans and gave a soft, awkward laugh.

“No, they’re… just like that,” He promised. “I’m not hurt.”

“I’m so sorry.” The man said, a miserable stressed look on his face. “He’s not… He isn’t usually… It’s been a hard day for him. I’m sorry.”

Cloud stared at him. Put a hand on Zack’s head as the pup whined softly and anxiously.

“It’s okay,” He said softly. “Are you alright?”

The man’s lips parted softly. Opened to lie and stumbled. Faltered.

“I’m,” He started. “Alright. Shaken. I’m sorry. Is your dog—”

“Zack’s alright,” said Cloud, smiling. “He bounces back fast. I’m pretty sure he’d be your friend if you wanted. Might take him a second longer to warm up to Genesis but–Oh, nevermind. Look at him. Already wagging his tail again. He seems to really like you.”

“Hm.” Said the man, glancing down to the burly rottweiler at his side. “It seems Angeal likes him as well. I rarely see him this pleased.”

Cloud looked at the cautious tail-wag and slightly lifted ears on the rottweiler and frowned in confusion.

“Well, um,” Cloud said awkwardly. He felt Zack tug at the leash, and stumbled a little closer as Zack pulled.

“Zack,” He hissed. “Come on, you were being SO good.”

Zack whined piteously, and the rottweiler Angeal gave a very soft whuff in response, taking a half-step away from the handsome man to sniff in Zack’s direction.

“He’s alright.” Gods, Cloud had thought he looked handsome before but the man’s small, indulgent smile was killer. “I trust Angeal’s discretion. I truly am sorry. They’re not… My dogs, really. I didn’t realize he was getting tense.”

“Not yours?” Cloud asked, glancing to how they were all but glued to his sides. “They’re well trained though.”

“Think of them like mercenaries.” the man said with a sigh. “My company gave them to me because I asked for some security. This wasn’t really… my idea. The problem is I have no idea what I’m doing, and I think they know. Genesis in particular. He doesn’t trust my judgement so…”

“So you get situations like this,” Cloud said with a nod. “I’ve read about that happening with sheep dogs. That they'll just do what they think is best if they don't trust you. I guess it makes sense it’d happen with guard dogs too. Sounds like you’re in a tough position.”

“They’re usually no trouble.” Said the man in a slightly awkward tone. Cloud couldn’t quite figure out if the stranger liked his dogs or not. It put him on edge. Made him uneasy.

Zack managed to pull far enough to sniff noses with Angeal, though it made Genesis rumble under his breath.

“He’s a sweet one, isn’t he,” the man murmured. “May I…”

“Oh, yeah, go for it.” Cloud said. “He likes most people.”

LIies didn’t begin to cut it. The moment the man offered his hand, Zack was in his top form. Wiggling so hard his nails tapped against the sidewalk. Offering tiny kisses to the bits of his arm he could reach.

Cloud was jealous of his dog’s natural ability to flirt. Especially right after a terrible adrenaline dump.

“Sorry, Zack’s pretty enthusiastic.” Cloud laughed, ready to reign his pup in.

“He’s marvelous.” The man said softly, a smile crossing his lips. He rubbed Zack’s ears with the hand holding Angeal’s leash. Genesis’s he kept a tight grip on, holding him back at his heel.

“I’m Cloud.” Cloud blurted, and instantly regretted it. “For the record. Since, um, I know your dogs names now, and you know mine.”

“Cloud.” The man said, scratching slowly behind Zack’s ear like he wasn’t entirely certain he was supposed to be doing it. “I assume I need no introduction?”

“What?” Said Cloud, caught between confusion and a little sting of hurt. “Oh, I mean… You don’t have to of course. I’m sure we’ve already taken up your time—”

Zack leaned heavily against Cloud’s legs. Made him stumble a little. Cloud cast his dog a confused glance while Zack continued to play the puppy under the pets he was getting.

“Oh,” the man said. “You don’t know who I am. I’m sorry, I get used to… That’s… I’m Sephiroth.”

He straightened, wiping his hand free of Zack’s fur on his clearly tailored shirt and offering it to Cloud to shake.

Cloud took it in a daze, grinning.

“Hi,” He said softly. “Sorry I don’t know, uh… What you’re famous for. I’m pretty new to town still.

“No, it’s refreshing,” Sephiroth said.

Between them Angeal and Zack were sniffing each other’s faces. Zack tucked his tail just a little and whined, licking at Angeal’s chin. The giant dog’s mouth opened in a panting smile, his tongue lolling out past truly impressive jowls and a sort of good humor seeming to come over him as Zack wiggled and danced his way around his new friend.

“Wow,” Cloud said with a laugh. “He’s really patient.”

“I… Think he gets quite bored.” Sephiroth said, carefully laying a hand on Angeal’s head. That same uncertainty in his gesture. Cloud could see why he was having trouble with his willful dog. “I think they both do.”

“Well,” Cloud said. “If he ever wants to play some, I know Zack’d be up for it.”

Sephiroth glanced up at him. Looked him over top to bottom, then nodded.

“I have to go to work for now,” he said slowly. “But if perhaps you wanted… To meet this evening? In this same area? There’s a dog park at the north end of the park. I could rent it for us for the afternoon. If that’s alright.”

Cloud gawped at him. Stared openly, a flush on his cheeks instantly. That was… Just about a date, he was pretty sure. That was probably a date.

“Um, yeah,” he stuttered. “If you think Genesis would be okay with that?”

“He’s good most of the time,” Sephiroth sighed. “He had to step up earlier today when someone tried to bother me, so he’s a little high-strung right now. That’s all.”

“That’s awful.” Cloud said, his brows twisting.

“I try not to stress him.” Sephiroth murmured sheepishly.

“I mean it’s awful someone was bothering you.” Cloud said. “If you’d rather have a relaxing day, I’m sure we’ll bump into you again some time?”

“It’s fine if you decide you’re weary,” Sephiroth said. “But I believe I will rent the dog park anyway. It has been too long since these two were allowed to relax. You would be welcome. If you are free.”

They bade each other farewell quickly a short while later, both independently remembering the time and the rest of their days yet to come.

Cloud spent all day programming at home, rubbing Zack’s tummy with one foot while he programmed at his desk, tossing tennis balls for him in between projects, and thinking about Sephiroth’s offer.

He finished work early and, for the first time in his life, spruced up a little bit to go to the dog park.

* * *

“Hi!” Zack called the moment they walked up to the fence.

The pretty, angry dog from before glared over at him from his place at his human's side. But the big kind one instantly started a heavy jog over towards him to say hello.

“Pup,” He greeted, his small tail wagging a few times in greeting as he sniffed Zack’s face a couple times, just confirming it was him. “I see your ridiculous plan worked out for you.”

“Tell him he looks like an idiot when he wiggles like that.” Called the angry one.

Zack only smiled at them both as his Cloud carefully unclipped his leash.

He whispered something into Zack’s ear, pointing at the pretty dog. Zack assumed it was a warning and barked approvingly at his packmate’s caution.

“He thinks Genesis will eat you?” The rottweiler guessed as he wandered over.

“Well, he did try, to be fair.” Zack said happily. “I’m so glad you were willing to talk to me! I’m so glad your human said it was okay! I'm Zack!”

“Angeal. You were very foolish, pup.” Angeal said, though his expression was kind, and the big paw he lifted landed lightly on Zack’s head. A thoughtful gesture of repression. “Don’t poke strangers to see if they’ll respond.”

“I wasn’t poking just to play, I promise,” Zack whined. “Though play would be nice! If you play!”

“Perhaps.” Angeal said, low and full of humor. “What was it you wanted then, if not attention and foolishness?”

“That,” said Zack, looking over towards where Sephiroth and Cloud were already standing close, talking. Smiling.

“Ah,” Said Angeal, approval in his tone and posture.

“My Cloud is lonely so much,” Zack said. “I know he’s happier since I came, and I’m happier since he found me. But I know he wants other humans too. You know?”

“Yes,” said Angeal. “We do know. Our human has a difficult time finding people he can trust. That’s why we guard him.”

“From idiots like this puppy and his person.” Genesis growled, having finally come over to join them, though if the stiffness in his motions was any gauge he wasn’t happy about it.

“You know as well as I do that they’re no threat.” Angeal said mildly. “A little loud and annoying at worst. And besides, look at Sephiroth. Doesn’t he seem happier?”

“They get along so well.” Zack praised, wiggling again with his happiness. “I’ve been trying to meet a lot of people, and Cloud gets so nervous around most of them, but your human seemed nervous too, so I thought they could be nervous together.”

“Of all the hair-brained—” Genesis grumbled.

“They’re looking at us.” Angeal said, swinging his huge head towards Zack and butting him lightly. “Play with me, pup. We’ll distract them if we just sit here talking.”

Zack didn’t need to be told twice. He lept into the air in a feat of twisting delight that made him appear, briefly, to have too many legs. Then he raced away, and Angeal wuffed as he gave chase.

Genesis abstained, walking back towards Sephiroth and dropping into a haughty sit at his side.

Zack ran till his stamina wore out, then barked in delight as Angeal barreled into him, rolling him over in the grass. The bigger dog pinned him amiably, simply propping his front legs over the wiggling puppy and holding him there.

When Sephiroth called them over Angeal gave Zack a sloppy, parental lick over his ruff.

“Tell me about yourself when you catch your breath,” Angeal urged. “You’re a tough little fellow. I saw how you wanted to take Genesis’s teeth for your human.”

“I’m nothing special,” Zack said. “My first people tried to kill me because I was too loud, so I think I should be quieter, but Cloud likes it when I’m loud, and even though he’s my second human, he’s my favorite.”

Angeal gave a low rumble of a growl, moving to walk closer to the pup, his shoulder bumping up against Zack’s. His guard-dog pose. Protective and fond.

Zack melted into it at once, leaning back against him as they ambled together, panting, to their people and the haughtily waiting Genesis.

“You looked terribly undignified.” Genesis informed Angeal.

“It was fun!” Zack objected.

“I wasn’t talking to the puppy.” Genesis informed Angeal.

“Cimmhir Zack!” called Cloud.

Zack didn’t understand much of what his human said, but he knew those sounds, so he went to Cloud’s side, wiggling into his lap between his knees. He smiled in approval of how Sephiroth and Cloud were sitting side by side in the grass, chatting and smiling. Angeal slid in between them, not to block them but just to be at Sephiroth’s side, since Genesis was taking up his right.

Sephiroth said something to Cloud, then turned a little towards Angeal, sliding his hand over his barrel chest and starting to rub his other hand down his back. Angeal’s face instantly fell into a relaxed and slightly drooly smile.

“He’s never this affectionate.” Angeal sighed, glancing to Zack. “Maybe you really are onto something, pup.”

“Hey.” Genesis said, sharp and annoyed, his nose lifted and his ears pointed sharply forwards.

They glanced over. Zack wagged his tail slowly, waiting for the rebuke. But Genesis was ignoring both of them. He lifted his paw and placed it on Sephiroth’s arm firmly.

“Pet me.” He demanded.

Cloud laughed with them at the haughty dog’s demand, and Zack wondered not for the first time how much his human understood. He was awfully proud of him for having worked so hard to learn. He could remember a time when Cloud couldn’t understand him when he said ‘that hurts.’ They’d come so far together.

He licked his Cloud’s cheek as Sephiroth lifted a hand to Genesis, rubbing his head between his ears. The sound of their human laughter was soothing to him. It sounded like something new. Something good.

Zack was watching when Sephiroth’s hand slid off Angeal’s back to rest on Cloud’s arm, lightly. Watching when his Cloud’s face brightened in a pleased look, one of his hands burying itself in Zack’s ruff while he rested the other on Sephiroth’s hand in return.

Zack beamed over at Genesis and Angeal and, as always, blabbered aloud what he was thinking. That he liked this, what this felt like. That it felt like Cloud bringing him home had felt. And Zack couldn’t stop his tail wagging the whole rest of the night at the very thought of another new beginning as good as his new home had turned out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Garden


	29. Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to live with his PTSD, Sephiroth is glad for a quiet job in a gardening shop. New to town and lonely, Cloud's really just looking for a plant to make his apartment more livable. But if it means meeting the handsome flowershop guy again, he can handle getting a few more plants he doesn't need.

__

<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>

* * *

_His dreams are still full of the war. It lingers there long after the treaties were signed. Long after talks of peace have faded into memory. No longer than the wounds he left behind him have lasted. No longer than the damage has lasted._

_The company offered him everything money could buy to move past it. Medication, the best therapists, dogs, cats, companions._

_He suspects they fear he’ll speak to someone they don’t control. He suspects they had him commit war crimes there. Suspects none of it went as it should have._

_They shouldn’t have worried. He would never speak of it. Not to anyone. The war lives inside him. The screams and the fire and the sound. Nothing he could say would take it back. Nothing he could do would heal the wound._

_They still keep trying to get him back on the payroll. Back in the field. Even after all the years. That’s what gives him the worst nightmares._

* * *

_His dreams are empty. A lonely house, an empty world. He wanders through it, calling for his mother._

_She is nowhere._

_When he dreams in his new apartment it’s almost worse_

_He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know why he’s there. He doesn’t know anyone here._

_The streets are full of people. In his dream they don’t move. In his dream they are all more beautiful than he is. So tall, and stately, and lovely. So above him. So beyond him._

_They do not see him. He cowers at the corners of the streets, wishing he was like them. Wishing he was as lovely as they were. As still..._

* * *

“Can I help you find anything?” Sephiroth said, mostly on autopilot. There had been a car with a loose muffler that morning, on his way to work. It had set off his tinnitus, left his ears ringing. He tried not to show it. He didn’t want to explain to his coworkers why he was covering his ears in their quiet greenhouse.

“Oh, um,” the man said, “I was just looking—”

Sephiroth tilted his head, his eyes slightly unfocused, losing the man’s words under the weight of the ring in his ears. Was it still ringing? Or was someone screaming? If there was someone in trouble, would he hear them under his battle-damaged hearing?

He glanced up to the customer before him, gauging whether he seemed disturbed. Had he heard what Sephiroth thought he was hearing? Did he hear screaming?

The young man was looking at him with a slightly furrowed brow. He’d been noticed. Hells. He followed the line of the young man’s hand, spotting the fig tree at the end of his gesture, his fingers nearly resting against the leaf.

“It’s a good tree,” he said slowly, trying his best guess. The man seemed to relax a little, so Sephiroth kept going. “It will need to stay in a pot for at least another few months before being transplanted, but it would do fine indoors or outdoors so long as there was enough sun. And better yet, it would start bearing fruit even if you couldn’t transplant it outside for another year or two. More than that would be pushing it, though more in terms of your door height than anything.”

The young man chewed on his lower lip, looking at the tree. Sephiroth watched him touch delicate fingertips to its leaf. He liked people who touched the plants like that. Tender, respectful, rightfully concerned about the damage their fingertips could do.

“That sounds perfect.” The man said, smiling. “Can you give me a hand getting it up front? I don’t want to damage it.”

Sephiroth smiled at him, relieved, and felt the stress in his chest soften when the young man smiled back.

* * *

Cloud looked at the small tree in his window, hands on his hips. He’d really gone in for a flower. Something small and light. Just a little something to brighten up his empty home. The small tree was a touch sparse still. A little woody. And it would definitely be too big for his little apartment soon.

“Do people adopt trees like pets?” Cloud asked the fig tree, tilting his head. “No offense. I just wanted a, like… Some sort of flower. I don’t really know much about plants.”

The fig tree, to its credit, didn’t appear to judge him.

“Well,” Cloud said slowly, “Maybe we’ll get along in the meantime. Your friend at the shop thought you were a good tree, so…”

Cloud had, technically, asked about a plant that was hard to kill but a little more lively than a cactus. He’d asked it stuttering and uncertain, especially when he realized the handsome greenhouse worker wasn’t looking at him. Wasn’t even listening. He’d trailed off as the man wavered. He’d never forget the look on his face, he thought. That look of worry. Of quiet fear. Of uncertainty. The way he lifted bright eyes to Cloud, as if he was looking for an answer.

When he'd snapped out of his frozen look, spoken fondly about the tree in such a rush, Cloud couldn’t have corrected him even if the tree had broken his budget twice as much as it actually had.

As it was…

Well. He was really cute. That kind of odd greenhouse guy. Maybe Cloud could ask him for a houseplant properly the next time?

* * *

_Maybe a greenhouse wasn’t the best pick. Maybe his hands were too rough and scarred. Maybe the fingers he’d broken fighting would never be delicate enough. His employer didn’t care._

_‘I hope you can find some peace here.’ Aerith had said warmly. ‘For our part, I’ve only known you a few hours at this point, and I have every faith that you’ll be invaluable to us in a week.’_

_If Elmyra disagreed, she held her tongue. Sephiroth did his best to prove Aerith right._

_He found, to his surprise, that he had something of a knack for it. That he liked it. Testing the dirt with his pale fingers, staining them with something fresh and cool and earthen rather than the copper tang of blood. That he loved the plants. Took pride in them._

_And when it was too much, all too much, Aerith always seemed to know. Sent him to check on their secondary greenhouse, with all the sprouts. Took his spot with the customers. Let him stand in the warm air there, damp with mist. Breathing in the scent of fresh earth and growing plants until he could remember where he was._

* * *

_Cloud hadn’t really wanted to come to this new town. He’d wanted to stay home. Inherit his mother’s house and die there like she had._

_But nothing was that simple._

_The mortgage had been too much for him. The stress of the townspeople’s judgement even more so. The loneliness in his familiar home suffocating._

_In the end, it had been a choice between destroying everything he had left in his life, and surrendering all that he knew._

_He sometimes wondered if he’d made the right choice in trying._

_His job was drudgery, though it paid the bills. He’d had no friends in Nibelheim, but at least he had known people. Here he was adrift. Isolated. Alone._

_He often opened his mouth to address his mother’s ghost, as if she was there in the room, but stalled out after no more than a breath. It was too heavy a weight for him to bear. He hoped she was there. He hoped she was not._

_He didn’t know what to say to her either way._

* * *

“Hello,” the pleasant woman at the front of the greenhouse said to Cloud, “Are you finding everything alright?”

“I’m, uh…” Cloud stuttered, instantly flushing. “Really just… Looking for now? If that’s okay? I promise i’m not just loitering or—”

“You can loiter if you want.” The woman laughed. “Just don’t step on any flowers, alright? Find one of us if you need anything or have questions, okay?”

“Thank you.” Cloud said, trying for casual and ending up sounding just a little too genuinely grateful.

The lady only smiled at him and went back to turning small plants out of their temporary containers and into proper pots. Cloud watched her for a long moment, admiring the easy motion, the twist of her wrists, the shifting of her weight slowly back and forth as she worked.

She turned one out in a particularly smooth and swift motion, flicking her wrists at the end, and cast him a little smile and a wink.

Cloud grinned, but hurried on and stopped gawping.

He honestly didn’t know what he was looking for in terms of plants. But in terms of people…

It took a minute for the handsome shop worker who’d sold him on the fig tree to appear. He’d been in another room it seemed, and he stepped into the main greenhouse with a smear of dirt on his pale cheek and a dazed look. Cloud was briefly worried, maybe last time hadn’t been an exception and the man was just always having a bad time?

But when the man lifted his eyes and saw him watching, he gave him a small, confused smile. He looked better. Aware. Cloud felt himself relax, just a little, and smiled in return.

He wasn’t really prepared for the man to walk over towards him. Hadn’t planned what to say.

“The tree’s lovely.” He offered the moment the man was in earshot.

“Hm?” The man lifted his eyebrows, pleasant but a little confused. Cloud felt his cheeks heating up and bounced on the balls of his feet. It had been too long since he talked to people outside of work…

“The… The fig tree,” Cloud clarified, clearing his throat. “I like it a lot.”

The man smiled, slow and steady and… Well. Cloud thought the smile made him look almost sweet.

“I’m very glad.” He said, soft and low. “Did you find another gap in your garden that I can help you fill out?”

“Well,” Cloud said, shifting his weight. “I was thinking, I quite like that the fig will start having fruit in a year or two? I’ve never really grown my own, um, ingredients before. Any recommendations on where to start?”

The man listened, his head tilted slightly towards Cloud as he spoke. Then he nodded, his smile turning a little brighter and more energetic.

“Let me show you to the herb section.”

* * *

Sephiroth was glad the blond had come back. He’d seemed nice, and he hadn’t been himself on his first visit. Had only barely guessed the item he was asking about through luck before. He wouldn’t let him down again.

He was nice, Sephiroth thought, watching his fingers hover over the plants Sephiroth was encouraging him to touch, to rub, to smell. Sephiroth liked his careful hesitancy, though it spoke to his inexperience as a gardener.

“Are you sure it’s alright?” He asked again.

When Sephiroth nodded sagely, the blond slid his hand through the basil leaves and brought it to his face to smell the scent left on his skin.

Sephiroth loved the look on someone’s face when they smelled good herbs. The young man’s eyes fell closed in pleasure and his lips parted softly as he enjoyed the scent. Sephiroth dragged his eyes away, swallowing and giving the basil a warning glare. How dare it smell so good.

“That’s marvelous.” The young man whispered. “What sort of care does it need?”

“It’s pretty simple,” Sephiroth promised. “Just give it time to recover in between using leaves for your cooking.”

“Will it be okay?”

“Hm. From how you seem to treasure it, I think you’ll do just fine.”

The young man flushed. Bit his lower lip. Smiled slightly despite himself.

“Thank you,” He said softly. “I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time?”

“Not in the slightest,” Sephiroth said. “Will you come by again?”

“Definitely.”

“Then feel free to ask for me. I’m Sephiroth. Aerith, the owner, will know how to find me.”

“Oh,” The young man wiped his hands on his pants, then stuck one out towards Sephiroth. “I’m Cloud!”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth murmured, wiping his hand on his apron. He took Cloud’s hand, held it firmly. “Good to meet you officially.”

* * *

_Cloud’s apartment filled up quickly with plants. He still hadn’t managed to get any flowers, but he liked the plants he had gotten better. They smelled wonderful. His whole apartment was a journey of smells. He shifted their places around, finding them good sunny spots._

_His living room was the scent of his little personal rosemary bush. His bedroom had some potted lavender. His kitchen had three basil plants now, each of a slightly different variety. He loved using them in cooking, but he worried about his plant, so he’d gotten a couple more after some carefully saved paychecks._

_He still didn’t really understand plants, but he’d gotten some practice in. It was hard not to when there was a handsome, friendly, helpful man who always looked so happy to see him._

_Cloud knew better than to flirt with someone at work but…_

_Cloud knew a lot of his corporate coworkers went out to drink when they needed to feel better about the world after a long shift._

_Cloud went out and bought a new plant from Sephiroth._

* * *

_“He’s not bothering you is he?” Aerith asked, her hand gentle on Sephiroth’s arm._

_“Who?” Sephiroth asked, heart hammering. Did she know, about the Shinra officials hounding him for more of his life?_

_“That blond kid.” Aerith said, squeezing his arm gently. “He always asks for you. Do you want me to shoo him away?”_

_“Oh,” Sephiroth said, his surprise leaking through into his voice. “No. No, I… like it when Cloud stops by. Has he been a problem?”_

_Aerith smiled, the protective intensity melting off her face into a warm smile._

_“He’s been very sweet,” She said. “But I wanted to be sure. You like to suffer in silence sometimes.”_

_Sephiroth hadn’t answered. Had placed a hand on her shoulder and left her behind. He pulled his notebook out as he walked home, turning to the page labeled Cloud, and added the sage he’d bought that afternoon to the list._

_He’d taken to herbs at once, clearly, from Sephiroth’s notes. He’d only bought one little succulent other than the herbs and the fig tree._

_Sephiroth looked at his note of the fig tree for a long while, wondering where it fit in the grand scheme of Cloud’s home garden._

* * *

“Good morning Aerith,” Cloud said, months later. He came bearing treats-- cookies he’d baked the night before. He’d found that they tended to like snacks, the greenhouse employees. Something about being too far out of town to run down the street for treats.

“Cloud,” Aerith said softly. “I am glad to see you. Do you… That is, do you think you might check in on Sephiroth?”

Cloud blinked, his smile falling slowly as he set the cookies on the counter.

“Is something wrong?” He asked.

“Probably not,” Aerith said softly. “Just… he’s had a hard day. He’s over in the new-growth garden. Do you remember—”

“Little greenhouse to the left, right?” Cloud said, already waling. “I’ll give it a knock.

He tried not to think about how anxious Aerith looked.

At first when he walked into the greenhouse, he thought it was empty. Just the rush of the misters and the smell of fresh earth.

Then he saw the form curled in the corner. Heard how his ragged breaths fit in with the sound of it all. Cloud was at his side in no time.

He didn’t grab him. Didn’t yell or call for help. He just knelt in front of Sephiroth, slowly, watching the way his glassy eyes glanced up at him then averted themselves swiftly.

“It’s okay,” Cloud told him softly, settling down to sit across from him, feeling a strange calm descend over him. Thinking of how much good it had done his broken heart to sit in the quiet presence of his plants, lovingly picked by the handsome man before him. “It’s okay. You aren’t alone.”

It took Sephiroth time to come around. When he did, he reached out carefully, and Cloud took his hand.

He held on until the quiet man was ready to stand again. And even then he held it carefully until Sephiroth was ready to let go.

* * *

“ _You live in an apartment?”_

_“Well… Yeah. It’s not fancy, I know, but—”_

_“You bought a fig tree.”_

_“I… Was planning to find it a new home when it got big enough.”_

_“You didn’t intend to get it at all, did you?”_

_“Not really, no. I was kind of thinking one of the orchids? I didn’t know they were called orchids though. I’ve learned a lot recently. Can I make you tea?”_

_“Yes. May I see all your plants?”_

_“Oh, of course. I’ll give you the tour of them.”_

_Sephiroth had been right. His plants were safe with Cloud._

_He was safe with Cloud._

* * *

_Sephiroth was in his apartment._

_Wow, yeah, thanks brain, you can stop reminding me of that, Cloud told himself firmly, stirring honey into their tea._

_Sephiroth touched his Thai basil’s leaves lightly and held his fingertips up to enjoy its scent._

_In Cloud’s apartment._

_Sephiroth was in his apartment._

_Cloud stifled a desperate little moan of embarrassment._

* * *

“So this outdoor area,” Cloud said slowly. “It’ll be the display garden?”

“Displaying the cream of the crop.” Sephiroth agreed. “Do you think you’re up to the challenge?”

“Well,” Cloud said, “I can dig holes where Aerith tells me to, and water things pretty consistently. Think that qualifies me?”

“You’ll be perfect,” Sephiroth snickered, holding the sunflower under his arm, his braid trailing over his shoulder. “She’d keep you around for your cookies alone. But I have no doubt that within the week you’ll make yourself invaluable.”

Cloud swallowed hard, glancing up shyly at Sephiroth and giving him a sweet, cautious smile.

“I’ll do my best,” He murmured.

“Care for a trick of the trade?” Sephiroth asked.

“I’ll take one.” Cloud said at once.

Sephiroth lifted the flower, shifting it between them. Cloud watched it move, studying its petals, its leaves, its damp earth. It distracted him completely from Sephiroth’s approach. From the lips approaching his. He caught his breath as Sephiroth caught him in a gentle kiss.

Cloud melted into it, lifting his hand to brace the flowerpot between them as Sephiroth wrapped one hand around his waist.

“Sephiroth,” Cloud breathed as their lips parted.

“Hm,” Sephiroth smirked. “I did tell you it was a trick.”

Cloud couldn’t decide whether to eschew his company entirely for the joke or laugh forever.

He just kissed him to avoid the conversation. That was definitely it.

The fig tree he’d purchased by accident sat in what would soon be their show garden, ready for re-planting in firmer soil where it could grow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final Chapter: Reincarnation


	30. Reincarnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kindergarten is a scary time. It's hard to be away from parents, and Cloud's mom is absolutely certain she's going to pick up her baby boy and find him miserable. Instead he runs out to meet her overflowing with joy, and with news of a new best friend. But the ghost of his past life is _much_ less excited about the whole situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with us through all 30 days! I hope you've found new favorite stories, new ideas to dream in, and new artworks to admire. Enjoy the final day: Reincarnation.

[<For more of Tomo's art, click here!>](https://twitter.com/tomowowo?lang=en)

* * *

Lillian Strife spent Cloud’s first day of school mindlessly shelving books. It was the sort of job she usually despised. She was much more interested in working other sections of the library. Helping visitors through the computer system or the old-fashioned filing banks, weighing in on upcoming programs, planning for the children’s section…

But her little boy was at school, his first day ever, and she’d wanted a task where she could have her phone on vibrate in her pocket, just waiting for the call to come and get her son. Waiting to hear something had gone wrong, fearing what it would be that broke.

Time passing should have had a calming effect on her. Instead she checked the time so often that it barely seemed to move at all until, at last, it was time for her to go.

She was preparing for it as she drove. Bracing for it. For tears, and snot, and sorrow, and the guilt of leaving her son in a school he hated because she didn’t have any other option. He was still so young, she thought sadly. Kindergarteners started so young…

She held her breath through the car rider’s line. Watched the friendly teachers waving and calling children forward to load them into their parents cars. She saw Cloud’s teacher first. The smiling brunette woman with the beaming smile and the warm green eyes.

“Lillian,” she greeted, “one moment, let me call Cloud out for you. I think he had a very nice day today!”

She must say that to all the parents, Lillian thought. She thought it right up until her little ray of sunshine ran sprinting out of the building, his chocobo backpack even brighter yellow than his hair, and a crumpled piece of paper clutched in one hand.

“MAMA!” He yelled as he leapt into the back seat of the car past his teacher.

“Goodness!” Lillian blinked, a slow smile crossing her face. “What has you all riled up, sweetheart?”

“I made a friend!” Cloud yelled, inside voice forgotten, and unfurled the piece of paper. “He can already write!”

Scrawled on the piece of paper, barely legible, was “Sephiroth” slanted heavily upwards, written in clumsy ham-fisted writing. And crammed in beside it was “Clod,” which she thought was not a bad attempt at all for a kindergartener. A precocious kindergartener. Who could already write his own name. Which was… Well. Unique.

“We’ll look forward to seeing you in the morning!” Cloud’s teacher laughed warmly. “I hope you’ll be good friends with Sephiroth tomorrow too.”

“I will be!” Cloud vowed. “Thank you miss Aerith!”

His teacher waved goodbye to them as they drove away, and Lillian felt the vice around her heart loosen as Cloud prattled on and on and on and on about his new friend, his pretty hair, and his incredible skill at being able to write his name.

“It starts with an S!” Cloud told her, at least three times.

“It sure does, sweetheart,” Lillian laughed, “it sure does.”

* * *

“Hello boys,” Miss Aerith said, crouching down next to the two best friends. “May I tell you a secret?”

“Yes!” Cloud said in what seemed to be his best whisper, which was barely below his normal speaking voice, but said through his teeth.

“Nap time,” Aerith whispered, covering her mouth with one hand. “Is usually supposed to be for naps.”

“Sorry miss Aerith,” Sephiroth said. He was much quieter than his friend. His voice soft and sweet, matching his huge eyes and soft silver hair.

“It’s okay,” Aerith said warmly. “But will you two give it a try? For me?”

“I’m not tired,” Cloud whispered to her, his brows furrowed.

“I think if you close your eyes, you will be.” Aerith told him.

Sephiroth yawned as if on cue, and Cloud glanced to him, considering.

Then she got a nod from the little blond boy, who cuddled back up on his mat under his hand-made blanket. The moms all sent one in with their kids. Sephiroth’s was a soft snuggly fleece. Cloud’s was crocheted, a little rough around the edges, but no less warm for it. Probably warmer.

“Thank you boys.” She whispered, and left them to it. She was fond of those two. Trouble though they were already becoming, even just three days into the school year. They’d been inseparable since moment one, and she couldn’t help but encourage them.

She had the strangest feeling that they deserved it. And she’d learned a long time ago to trust those feelings.

After all, that was what had led her to her husband, that day when she cried in the grocery store at the sight of a dark-haired smiling man.

* * *

Cloud was not trapped. He was not gone. He was not forgotten. He was just new. New body, new life, new chance. He hovered in the background, real and not-real at once.

He was happy.

He was very very rarely aware. When he was very very sleepy after playing too much, he had thoughts that didn’t belong in this life. When he was stressed or scared he would sometimes remember things. He occasionally knew things he shouldn’t. But overall, whatever he had been before, it was happy enough to be left alone.

But that first naptime, as he drifted off, something stirred inside him that left his dreams uneasy.

Cloud unfolded from within the child, like a flower blossoming. He was not real. He was the boy. He was himself. He was angry.

He looked down at the silver-haired child before him. Looked down at him as he crouched behind his own reincarnation.

“Why,” He asked the sleeping child, looking so innocent, so soft, so small. “Won’t you just stay dead?”

“I could ask you the same.” Said a voice that did not come from the child’s mouth. Cloud watched Sephiroth fade into being. Spectral and dangerous and inhuman as ever. Not sweet, or innocent, or small in the slightest.

He loomed behind his reincarnation. A doom over the child. A curse. His wing arching over his back marked him as inhuman. Cloud lay a hand over his reincarnation’s head, as if he could guard him.

“Stay away from him.” Cloud growled.

“He approached us,” Sephiroth said, guiltless and blithe. “Perhaps you should caution yourself. But then, you were always obsessed with me, weren’t you.”

“If you touch him,” Cloud hissed. “I will find a way to destroy you. I won’t let you steal anyone else’s happiness again.”

“He’s you.” Sephiroth said darkly. “Say what you mean.”

“I won’t let you ruin my life again.” Cloud snarled, fury coursing through him.

He vanished in an instant as his anger woke the child into startled tears, and Sephiroth vanished a moment after.

* * *

Aerith hurried over to find Sephiroth scooting closer to Cloud, tugging his blanket with him to wrap them both up under the fleece, hugging his friend silently, too sleepy for words but far from too sleepy for comfort.  
  
She crouched at Cloud’s other side, rubbing his back, and feeling certain it would be harder to get them to try and nap after this…

“S’okay,” she heard Sephiroth whisper to his friend. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. S’okay.”

She wondered where he’d heard that. But she knew better than to ask.

* * *

After three weeks of school, Cloud’s obsession with his favorite classmate hadn’t faded.

“Sephiroth has a stuffed monster,” Cloud would comment while snuggling his chocobo toy. “He says it doesn’t eat chocobos though.”

“What does it eat?” Lillian asked.

“CHILDREN.” Cloud proclaimed, his eyes huge and his grin enormous.

“Goodness.” Said Lillian, who didn’t know exactly how to react to that.

Another day it was

“Mom can you bring home fairy tale stories?”

“I thought you said you were too old for them, my Cloud.”

“I changed my mind.” Cloud said, straightening. Then he admitted, a moment later, “Sephiroth likes them, an' he’s really smart, so...”

“Ah,” Lillian said. “So when I like something, it’s ‘for babies,’ but when Sephiroth likes it…”

“Moooom,” Cloud whined. Then he fidgeted, pouting. “Don’t tell him it's for babies? He'd be sad. He should be happy.”

Lillian didn’t tease her boy about it again. She was too charmed by his care for his friend.

The next day it was:

“Can Sephiroth come over?”

“Hm?” Lillian asked, looking up from her book, to her son who had been studiously coloring a moment ago.

“For a playdate. Can he? Some of the other kids went to a party, and we’ve never been to a party, and I want to show him my room, and our books, and my animals and—”

“Alright,” Lillian laughed. “I’ll send you with a note for his mother.”

* * *

“Dear Sephiroth’s Mother,  
  
Forgive me, Cloud appears to know everything about your son except his last name. I can only hope that your son’s reports of Cloud have been half so positive as Cloud’s have been of Sephiroth.

He has asked me seven times while I have written the above if I have asked you yet if Sephiroth might come over to visit. So I suppose I must cut to the chase.  
  
We would like very much to host you and Sephiroth for a small play date, should you be willing. Our home isn’t particularly nice or clean, but Cloud is very excited at the potential of showing Sephiroth his games and toys, and of having him here.

If you would like to write me back without using Sephiroth as a messenger, I have included my email address below.

Wishing you the best,  
Cloud’s Mother (Lillian Strife)”

* * *

They fell asleep at nap time trying to figure out the letter. They had it spread on the floor between them, where Sephiroth had been sounding out letters one by one, cautiously but with determination. It was a nearly impenetrable code, but they had decided they were great detectives.

The great detectives had gotten very tired.

Cloud looked over his reincarnation’s shoulder, scowling down at the letter. He glanced up to the watching monster.

“I’d tear it up if I could.” He growled. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I know you’re up to something.”

“I’m five.” Sephiroth said, dry and unimpressed. “But of course, you’re right, as soon as my adult teeth come in I shall certainly bite you.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.” Cloud muttered.

“Strife,” Sephiroth said. “The boys are friends. Let it go. Resisting only hurts yourself.”

“I’d sooner hurt myself than—”

“Let me hurt you again. Yes. You’ve mentioned. Calm down before you wake him.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”

“As a matter of fact, I would.” Sephiroth’s hand ghosted over his reincarnation’s hair, a small, tender touch. “This one worries when he cries. He has nightmares, you know. They’re my fault, of course. You don’t have to tell me that. But the things I did, he hasn’t. Give him a chance.”

“He’s still you.” Cloud hissed. “You’re still you.”

“Yes,” Sephiroth said, looking up at Cloud. “Would you have gone back to kill me as a child if you could, hero?”

Cloud didn’t answer.

* * *

From: [LCrescent@AngealMemorialResearchHospital.org  
](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=mailto%3ALCrescent%40AngealMemorialHospital.org&t=YWE1ODlmM2UyNTMzMWFhYTc0OTQwMTExNjJmODE0ZmQzYTYyMWVkZixxMTNhb29GMg%3D%3D&b=t%3AR6u3xbwrU9J5yGXVAERaPw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fboomchickfanfiction.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F173473409749%2Fapril-otp-challenge-art-by-tomowowowo-story-by&m=1&ts=1595787316)To: [ComeandRead@MidgarsRockinLibrary.com](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=mailto%3AComeRead%40MidgarRockinLibrary.com&t=NzQxOWI1YmJhNzlmMTUyODZiOWQ0MzI4Y2IzODcyNDUyNDk1NDQ3MyxxMTNhb29GMg%3D%3D&b=t%3AR6u3xbwrU9J5yGXVAERaPw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fboomchickfanfiction.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F173473409749%2Fapril-otp-challenge-art-by-tomowowowo-story-by&m=1&ts=1595787316)

Subject: A Response to Your Invitation

Lillian,  
  
Apologies for the brief message, I am writing to you from work. Sephiroth forgot to deliver your message until this morning. I believe he may have been trying to decipher it, judging by the jam fingerprints. They appear too small to belong to an adult.

We would be delighted to accept. I am somewhat busy at the moment, but could spare some time on the weekend if you are free. I assume from your email address that you are a working woman as well, but know that the library is open on the weekends as well. Please reply with your availability so we might pick a date.

Sephiroth speaks so often of Cloud that I know very little else about his school experience. This is not a complaint. He has always been a quiet child, and it has made me very happy to know he has a friend.

Yours,  
Lucrecia.

* * *

They picked a Sunday. An early start, meeting up at nine am so they could part ways in time to get their tasks for the evening done. Lillian spent the morning baking. Cleaning. Worrying.

Angeal Memorial Research Hospital, the email had read. Who on earth was she inviting to her house… It had seemed rude to ask ‘Oh, I’m sorry, are you very fancy? Because I would love to have you over but I’ll need at least three weeks to prepare.’

She could have picked any date, she supposed, but Cloud had gasped out ‘did she write back? What did she say?’ as soon as he was home, and she hadn’t been able to come up with a reason not to have his friend over as soon as possible.

The moment she opened the door, she was met with a woman with a kind face and long brown hair. She smiled sweetly, inclining her head.

“Cloud’s mom, I presume?” She said.

“And you must be Sephiroth’s mom,” Lillian held out her hand and shook Lucrecia’s. “I hope it was no trouble to find us.”

“None at all. Sephiroth, will you say hello?”

Lillian looked down to the little hand clenched in Lucrecia’s shirt anxiously. She knew that look. Cloud had more than once begged to go somewhere, do something, then spent the whole time hiding.

“It’s quite alright,” Lillian said. “I’m not who he’s here to see after all. Cloud!”

“SEPHIROTH’S HERE!” Cloud bellowed, trampling down the stairs like a one-child stampede.

Lillian had never seen a child brighten so instantly. Sephiroth dropped his mother’s skirt at once, pushing around her and running forward.

He was precious. Silver hair and doe eyes and a natural grace that matched Cloud’s enthusiasm.

Lillian remembered that in her great grandparents time silver hair was all but unheard of. It was still rare, but no rarer than redheadedness. Still, she had never seen someone with hair that shone like the boy who darted past her and crashed into Cloud’s arms.

They clacked their teeth together and Lillian braced for tears.

“I’m sorry!” Cloud said instead.

“Sorry,” Sephiroth mumbled. “Okay?”

“Mmhmm!”

Lillian stared at them as they carefully inspected each other, pulling back from their hug, patting each others faces with small and sticky hands, checking for injury the way they’d seen their mothers do.

“Well,” Lucrecia whispered.

“Won’t you come in?” Lillian remembered to offer, still holding the door open.

“I think I will.” Lucrecia said, a smile in her voice and her eyes on the children as well.

They kept an eye on them a little while, but they may have been in another dimension. The boys were in their own world instantly, Cloud talking a mile a minute, Sephiroth adding quiet and hilariously thoughtful comments coming from someone so small.

“Would you like tea?” Lillian offered as Cloud took Sephiroth on a tour of his room, by which he meant a toy-by-toy introduction ceremony.

“Alright,” Lucrecia said. “Ah, we have cookies in the car for you, but… You may want me to forget them out there. Sephiroth insisted on helping and he is not… How shall I put this… Good at aiming where he sneezes.”

“No need to be political,” Lillian snorted. “I’m raising a little boy too.”

“Right,” Lucrecia laughed. “They’re as much snot as chocolate.”

“I think we’ll do alright with tea.” Lillian grinned in wicked delight. It had been a long time since he’d spent time with another mother…

“I am relieved to find you so… Don’t take this the wrong way. Normal.”

“Oh dear. What exactly has Sephiroth been saying?”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just… Anxiety I suppose. It’s only been a few weeks but so much has changed. I suppose I’m waiting for the disaster.”

“I can understand that,” Lillian turned her kettle on. “I’ll admit I was waiting for you to run screaming from the state of our house.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your house,” Lucrecia chided. “I quite like it. It feels lived in.”

What an excellently polite way to say messy, Lillian thought, but she didn’t call Lucrecia on it.

“Black, green, or herbal?” She asked instead.

“Black, please. I’m afraid work has left me quite dependent on caffeine.”

The silence that fell was made more comfortable by the chatter of voices down the hall, muffled by distance but warm and happy. It was a lively sound. One Lillian loved instantly. She and Cloud had lived alone his whole life, and it was rare they had company.

“I’m very glad you could come by.” She said once she had their teas prepared and was passing Lucrecia her mug. “I was so nervous about Cloud’s first day but he was just as bright as I’d ever seen him.”

“I was afraid too.” Lucrecia admitted. “I may be… Slightly over protective. Sometimes I want to hold him and never let go. Ever since he was born I’ve never gotten enough of holding him. But he’s certainly had enough, so I try not to cling.”

There was something sad about her then. Lillian hummed in understanding. Her eyes fell to Lucrecia’s left hand, and she felt her smile broaden just a little at the sight of no ring on her finger.

“Forgive me,” She said. “Are you… A single mother as well?”

“For the most part,” Lucrecia granted with a nod. “Though I can’t fault Sephiroth’s father too much. He makes an effort to be around. Still, usually it’s the two of us, and I wouldn’t change it.”

“Neither would I.” Lillian said, sitting back at the kitchen table, cradling her own mug and smiling across at the woman.

* * *

“Do you think they’re getting along?” Cloud whispered. Sephiroth had taught him how to whisper better. Now sometimes Miss Aerith didn’t notice him right away.

“I think so,” Sephiroth murmured, hiding under Cloud’s mountain of blankets and stuffed animals with him. “Mom usually yells when she’s not getting along with someone, and she’s not yelling.”

“My mom gets really quiet.” Cloud grinned.

“I hope they get along.” Sephiroth said. “Then we can do this more, right?”

“Yeah,” Cloud whispered, curling up against Sephiroth in their secret hideout. “Maybe they’ll let you stay!”

“Or you can come to my house,” Sephiroth hugged Cloud a little tighter. He was the same age, but already taller. “And meet all my animals too.”

“Yeah! I want–” Cloud yawned. “I want to!”

“I don’t have as many as you, but I like them.”

“You don’t? You should take someone with you.”

“Can I?”

“Yes! Who do you like best?”

“I don’t want to take one you like.”

“No,” Cloud said firmly. “You should take the best one. You’re my best friend.”

He plucked his chocobo out of the pile and pushed it into Sephiroth’s arms.

“His name’s Spot,” Cloud whispered. “Mom says he helps make my dreams happy.”

“He does?” Sephiroth whispered, his voice trembling. “My dreams aren’t... They aren't happy… Can I—”

“Yes! That’s why I gave him to you! You have to promise to take good care of him, okay?”

“I will. I will, I will, I will.”

Cloud hugged Sephiroth while Sephiroth hugged the chocobo. Cloud sniffled because Sephiroth was crying quietly again, the way he did when something was too much for him. And both of them drifted off teary and happy and so so glad to have one another.

* * *

They were silent at first, standing over the children in their tangle of blankets and stuffed animals. Cloud didn’t look up while Sephiroth wiped his eyes and took a slow breath to calm down. He couldn't bring himself to snap about it, because he was still feeling what Cloud had felt.

That worry and affection and adoration. That relief that there was someone with him. That he wasn’t alone. Poor kid, Cloud thought, still carrying the fragile fears he’d developed growing up in Nibelheim without knowing why.

“What a mess.” Cloud said softly, staring down at the teary snuggling pair.

“You don’t understand.” Sephiroth said instead of arguing, instead of goading. “You don’t understand. No one ever… Nothing ever…”

Cloud looked up. Saw the man scowling down at the boys, not out of anger, but out of something deeper and far more painful than that.

“No one ever helped.” He whispered, half-bitter half-awed.

“I can’t pity you,” Cloud said softly.

“I’m not asking you to.” Sephiroth hissed. “I’m asking you to understand. To not ruin this for him. I’m trying. I know I’m a monster, Cloud. He’s not. He’s not yet. He could be something else.”

Cloud looked down again. Down at the boys. It was easier than looking at Sephiroth.

“I…” He started, slowly. “I don’t trust you. But I hope. Cloud–I–He would do anything to make him happy.”

“Were you like this?” Sephiroth asked out of nowhere.

“What?” Cloud asked lifting his head.

“Before I got inside your head. Were you like this?”

“Oh,” Cloud said. “I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t remember. What I do remember of my childhood… It was a lot of loneliness and nothing. I didn’t have anyone around to be nice to, so far as I remember. I thought you would have known that. You played around in my head enough.”

“I don’t know anything about you.” Sephiroth said with an air of admission. “I was busy. You were just…”

“A puppet,” Cloud said, lifting his head. “You don’t have to dance around it. You never did before.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer, but his expression said what Cloud already knew.

He hadn’t mattered before.

* * *

Lillian and Lucrecia tried to talk Cloud out of giving Sephiroth his favorite toy.

“Won’t you miss him?” Lillian asked, quietly distraught for her son, worried he’d been pressured.

“Sephiroth will take good care of him.” Cloud said, teary but smiling.

“Oh, darling, it’s not polite to…”

“Cloud says he helps with sweet dreams.”

“But—”

“Mama, I want to. Please?”

“Please?” Sephiroth echoed.

There was no resisting the combined power of those enormous green and blue eyes.

* * *

“Hi.” Said Cloud at naptime, cross legged beside his reincarnation.

“Cordial,” Sephiroth noted, fading into appearance, his wing vanishing into the floor as he sat as well.

“So did Spot help with the nightmares?”

“No,” Sephiroth chuckled. “It’s a stuffed chocobo. But it helps him when he wakes up. He holds him, and he thinks of Cloud wanting him to be okay. It’s enough.”

“Hm.” Said Cloud, nodding quietly, looking down at his young self. “He keeps waking up looking for Spot, then he remembers he’s with Sephiroth. It makes him happy, every time. A sort of really sad, powerful happy.”

“You’re talking to me.” Sephiroth noted.

Cloud shrugged.

“There’s nothing I can do,” He said. “Except try to protect him in what he chooses. Gods know I didn’t make the best choices in my life. If this is what he wants… Well. He’s happy for now. I just hope it doesn’t go for him like it went for me last time. Wanting to be around you.”

“Ah,” Sephiroth said.

“You’d probably forgotten.”

“That you were a touch starstruck in Nibelheim between the carsickness and the disasters? No, Cloud, I remember. I wasn’t oblivious to you.”

“Hm.” Said Cloud. “Did you die when I did?”

“What?” Sephiroth asked, glancing up.

“Our birthdays,” Cloud said. “They’re only a couple days apart. Mom said something the other day when she wrote it on the calendar.”

“Oh,” Sephiroth said, then added awkwardly after a moment. “I like birthday parties. I didn’t have them before.”

“Sephiroth.”

The man sighed heavily, Cloud couldn’t help but watch the way his wing moved, like another hand, gesturing carefully with his words.

“Yes.” He said. “I died with you and your memory of me. Did you know that would happen?”

“I suspected. But I had too much to do and too many people I loved to run around testing that theory.”

“Hm.” Sephiroth gave him a very small smile. “I’m glad you didn’t live forever. This life… It’s better.”

“Well,” Cloud said after a moment. “It’s… off to a good start.”

* * *

The boys didn’t sleep much, so their previous lives didn’t talk much. They would exchange words here and there, sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes. Usually to comment on something they’d noted.

“So does he know you killed our teacher?” Cloud asked Sephiroth one afternoon.

“Sh!” Sephiroth scolded, moving a hand as if to cover the little boy’s ear. “No, and don’t you pass that into either of them. He adores her. She’s nice to him.”

“Well duh,” Said Cloud. “Aerith's always been great. I hope we meet up with her again when we’re older. She’s a hardcore party animal when you get to know her.”

“Really?”

“You should see her drive. She’s Soldier material for sure.”

“Did you know I wanted to be your friend back then?” Sephiroth asked another day.

“What?” Cloud had said, materializing quickly.

“On the way to Nibelheim. I knew you and Zack were friends. I was trying to open up a conversation. I just… Wasn’t very good at it. And, additionally, things were beginning to fall apart. It wasn’t great timing.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered?”

“I don’t think so. I just wanted you to know. You think of yourself as a nobody. As if you didn’t matter until you were changed. I wanted to know you then too. Even if I showed it poorly.”

“What was… Your plan?”

“Well… I killed a dragon in a single blow, so I was kind of hoping you’d be impressed. Then I asked about your hometown, which is about as close to a conversation as I’ve ever gotten before now.”

“You sure talked a lot.”

“Yes, a great deal of talking. And a fair amount of telling you to shut up and throwing materia at your head.”

Cloud, despite himself, snickered.

* * *

When they were about to graduate elementary school, their mothers finally let them have their first sleepover.

They’d tried once before, but Sephiroth had had one of his nightmares early in the night, and it had ended up with a great deal of driving at three in the morning, a good many tears, and an agreement between the moms that the boys needed to be a little older before they were comfortable.

Agreed quietly, with each holding their exhausted, sleeping sons.

But here, at the end of fifth grade, the beginning of sixth, they were finally having a sleepover. And what’s more, they were allowed to stay up as late as they wanted.

“Be good,” Lillian said, dropping Cloud off at Lucrecia’s house.

“I’ll be the best.” Cloud said.

Sephiroth had a nightmare, but no one ever knew. Because all he did was slide onto the floor and curl up with Cloud. And both of them slept better after that.

Cloud had pulled himself together out of his younger self. Had called to Sephiroth softly. Had seen the man slide together out of smoke from the child. Had watched him waver there, looking lost.

“I know he’s me,” Sephrioth said softly that night. “But I wish I could leave him alone.”

“Hm.” Cloud said softly. “Look at him. Sephiroth. He’s okay.”

Sephiroth nodded quietly after a moment, but he didn’t seem to believe it. So Cloud changed the subject, dragged the haunted man along with him. He shouldn’t have cared. Should have still been angry.

But it was all over now. He’d killed Sephiroth in the end. Had taken him out of life with himself. Had ended it and now they had started it together again.

If it had all gone wrong for Sephiroth before because no one was there for him, then Cloud would be there for him now.

After all, if not for the people who had been there for him…

Strangely, after the first hour, the conversation was easy. They talked about Aerith’s mysterious husband, and shared their hopes about him. Maybe he’d stop by class some time, and they could catch a glimpse of him.

“You never talked about Lucrecia before.” Cloud mentioned later in the night.

Sephiroth shrugged. “I guess I was reborn to a different mother.”

“Oh,” Cloud said after a second. “Oh. You don’t know.”

Sephiroth lifted his eyes to Cloud, expectant and intense.

So Cloud told him everything. The waterfall, the woman in crystal, the echoing sorrow in the cavern. Then told him about Vincent, what he knew about the story at least.

“I don’t… Suppose he’s your father?” Cloud offered.

“My father is a traveling car salesman,” Sephiroth said with a fond scoff. “Mother… Mom fell for him because he was bright and funny, and she was tired and sad. But they want different things. He visits often, but I don’t think he’s Vincent.”

“Well,” Cloud said slowly. “We always thought he might be immortal. So I guess that’s… maybe he’s still around somewhere.”

“Maybe.” Sephiroth said. “If he is, I don’t want him anywhere near my mom. No offense.”

“None taken,” Cloud said.

It took two more sleepovers for Cloud to realize he had another piece of the puzzle for Sephiroth. For him to tell him about the tape he’d found in Icicle Inn. About the empty house and another death at Hojo’s hands.

Sephiroth had nodded quietly after the story, quiet and thinking. Cloud could only watch the tears fall down his face and the sleeping child’s face at once.

“I knew.” Sephiroth said softly. “I knew. I even hoped sometimes. I thought maybe that would be better than him having forgotten me. I don’t… Know what I think now that I know. I need…”

“Go ahead.” Cloud said. “See you next time.”

* * *

He missed nap time as they moved up through the grades, meeting only during the sleepovers, but together always just the same. Because the older Cloud got, the more they were the same person. By the time Cloud was entering high school, they almost fit together.

He also had Sephiroth over so often that Lillian had started to just sigh and throw another helping of dinner on.

The first time Sephiroth had arrived unannounced at their house it had caused quite a ruffle. Lucrecia had been startled and afraid, clingy in the panic of having not known where her son was. Sephiroth had been embarrassed and sad.

“I just wanted to see you,” He’d whispered to Cloud, his voice cracking as it started to change, all of 13 years old.

Now it was just the way of things. Lucrecia didn’t mind so long as Sephiroth texted her, and Lillian was happy enough to have him. He helped clean up.

And Cloud… Well. Cloud was ecstatic with the situation.

“Your mom went to bed early.” Sephiroth commented one night, grinning.

“Yeah,” Cloud had said slowly. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Movie marathon.” Sephiroth purred, grinning.

“Horror?” Cloud offered.

“What else?”

They sat together naturally. Fit together like porcelain figurines built to slide into each others arms. Fell into place like they had so long ago under a pile of stuffed animals and blankets.

They weren’t entirely aware of what it was yet, but they knew it was there. When they finally fell asleep, collapsed against each other, open-mouthed, snoring, relaxed, Sephiroth and Cloud appeared without conversation behind them.

“Cute.” Sephiroth commented.

“Hm.” Cloud muttered. “I think you’ve moved past cute straight into handsome, you jerk.”

“Genetics.”

“Probably. You really do look like your mom.”

“Lucrecia’s genes must have always been strong.” Sephiroth said. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to meet you here, you know. Each day I’m more him.”

“Me too.” Cloud said, reaching out to touch Sephiroth’s hand. “I’m not afraid, though.”

“No,” Sephiroth said, holding Cloud’s hand, tight and firm and grounding. “I’m not afraid. Things…”

His voice choked. Broke off. He swallowed hard, and Cloud squeezed his hand. Stepped closer. Pressed against his side quietly.

“Things will be different,” Cloud said softly. “But I’m ready to move forward. If you are.”

“I think so,” Sephiroth said softly, looking down at the boys. “If you’ll be beside me.”

“Hm.” Cloud smiled, trying to ignore the tears on his face. On Sephiroth’s. On the faces of their other selves. They were all smiling too. It was complicated. It was an ending and a beginning at once.

“I think,” Cloud said softly, watching the boys on the couch turn towards each other as their dreams entwined with their past live’s realities. “That everything will turn out okay.”

**The End**

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much it has meant to read your comments, see your bookmarks, and share these stories and illustrations with you! It was a really hard challenge at the time, and it means the world to see how everyone has responded to it. You guys have really revived my joy in writing, and reminded me why I put in the work to do things like this! Thank you, thank you, and thank you!


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